Y2HH

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 10:38 AM) Without debt, a family bringing in 100K a year should feel pretty darned rich. What you bring in and what you actually keep can be very different things.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 10:11 AM) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States In my lifetime the top bracket has gone from mid 70% range to sub 40%. The results have been wealth has moved from the middle class to the rich. Have these top brackets ever actually paid anywhere near that, though? We often cite these historically high tax rates on the ultra rich, but I'm guessing none of them paid anywhere near that even during those times.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 09:39 AM) I’ve been thinking about our economy especially about the rich, those people who have amassed the most wealth. When Andrew Carnegie was building his fortune, his companies employed hundreds of thousands of employees. To become wealthier, the technology of the day required that he hire more and more people. Compare that to current companies that have similar value, they employ tens of thousands of employees. We’ve moved from an economic system that required a huge output of labor and many employees to a system where you can become incredibly wealthy with a great idea and few employees. Yet, we keep cutting the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans because they are “the job creators”. In fact it seems that the path to incredible wealth is actually to use less employees, or at the minimum cheaper employees. It seems like we should have been increasing tax rates on the wealthy instead of decreasing. The rates should have been low a hundred years ago and have been rising while cutting rates on the working class. Tax rates just did increase on the wealthy.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 19, 2013 -> 09:19 AM) Why do we need a balanced budget? Show your math. The math is simply 17 trillion in debt. That has to be paid back, or the interest payments alone will begin to outweigh income. If this isn't paid back, a default is inevitable, it's not a matter of if, but when. I'm not saying the time is NOW to balance the budget, but it has to be done, and that debt level has to come down, and the excuse of spend during bad times has become just that, an excuse. The issue is the same, and it will remain the same. The reason given that government should spend during bad times will get used -- correctly -- however, the government never draws back during good times and pays down the debt created during those bad times, and therefore it simply becomes an excuse. They spend during good times, they spend during bad times, the debt level grows, interest payments grow, and so on...eventually it has to happen.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 10:15 AM) The markets are rallying like they think a deal is about to happen. The markets are rallying because they think the House isn't stupid enough to actually default. But, they may be underestimating the absolute stupidity of what's going on in the GOP right now. However, I would tell people not to panic regardless ... if anything, look at it as an investment opportunity if they drive it off the cliff ... the market will rebound regardless, as it always does.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 15, 2013 -> 11:32 AM) I think we went with exchange just because it was the easiest option to get all of our docs remotely either via phone or at a home computer. We've had it for years though and I never was part of that decision. On a different "note," anyone have a Samsung Note phone? I noticed the 3 came out recently and I'm in the market for a new phone. Wondering if the size would be cool or a pain. Size depends on what you need it for, and personal preference, no? I find that most people claim they do more with their phones than they really do...IE, they send a few emails, text, and MAYBE make a phone call 99.9% of the time, and the other 0.01% of the time, they do something more complicated, or try out a feature only to never use it again.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 13, 2013 -> 07:18 PM) They must have had the phone for a long time then. Either that or they were doing a ton of sexting lol. Mostly family photo MMSing, each copy of it is another 800kb unless you sent them all in one mass text, otherwise it creates a new copy under that persons message string, over and over. But yes, you are talking a years worth of messages. And if you use a program like iMessage, where no such size restriction exists, it's even worse.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 13, 2013 -> 04:09 PM) It'll still be really hard to get 8 GBs of messages, as MMS usually has a 600 KB limit. I've seen it done well beyond 8 gb.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Oct 12, 2013 -> 11:53 PM) I'm trying to make sense of some of the idiotic comments at one of the newspaper accounts in Chicago. The mother of the baby was African-American? If that's true, it puts another slant on this story...some were intimating that the grandmother was racist (from her upbringing in Europe) and didn't want a mixed ethnicity grandchild. Don't know if that's true or not...just speculation. I didn't know the grandmother, but I believe she is polish, and I've seen her picture, she's white. The parents of the child I know, and both of them are white.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 12, 2013 -> 10:48 AM) What percentage of the jobs are hired that way? Is it just federal, or state, and local also? There are millions and millions of people who work for government agencies in this country, from the lady who accepts your water bill at your city office, to school teachers, garbage workers, cops, soldiers, postal carriers, inspectors, Doctors, lawyers, accountants, researchers, translators, and there are enough relatives to cover all those positions. Of course nepotism and favoritism doesn't exist in the private sector? You are joking correct? It exists in the private sector too. But much moreso in the public sector. Of course, to be fair, this is largely a thing of the past and is slowly going away, but growing up in Bridgeport, which is basically a town of Chicago city workers, everyone knew somebody, and that's how they all have their jobs today.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 09:18 PM) lol, how many texts do you get? Say each text is 20 characters, you'd need about 430 million text messages to fill up 8 GB. Videos and pictures sent in SMS (mms) is what fills up most peoples phones. They don't realize it, but every picture or video you receive and send/forward is another copy of that same data on your phone.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 08:07 PM) I got my job with no connections at all, and all but 3 of the hundreds of people I've ever hired had no connections I was aware of. Sounds like a load of crap. You are 39, claiming to have hired "hundreds of people", and out of those hundreds, just 3 were connected. That is a mathematically awesome, and seemingly impossible ratio. If it was just you, I'd say you were the exception to the rule, but being that you've claimed to hire "hundreds" of full time -- unconnected employees -- at the ripe old age of 39...is laughable. TL;DR: Bulls***.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 07:05 PM) Are you suggesting then that competent people accept jobs that pay less and do not offer pensions? Why do they do that if government jobs are so much better? Really? Get one of those really great government jobs without being the daughter's step-sister's cousin of a connect politician. Oh, you mean because it's easier to get work in the private sector when you don't know anyone? About what I thought. Welcome to the real world, Tex. You don't get those awesome government jobs without being born into the royal family that is US politics...or being lucky enough to actually become a freiend of a family member.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 03:08 PM) I have plenty of complaints about the criminal justice system in this country. That we still put people through it instead of lynching them without due process is not one of those complaints. Due process doesn't exist here. She admitted she did it, was caught red-handed with the evidence, DNA, sledgehammer and knife. What's the f***ing deal here? Are you honestly defending her? If so, you've jumped the shark that Fonzie was jumping, on the back of another shark.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 02:23 PM) Your contracted, out-of-office IT person should have sufficient security in place to prevent an email attachment from encrypting your entire network. This is what happens when you "outsource" to save a few bucks. What you said is exactly correct.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 01:40 PM) Becasue she brought the sledgehammer in the night before it could be premeditated and therefore eligible for the death penalty. Does Illinois still have the death penalty? No. They don't. She gets to live on via the public dime now while that baby has been deprived of it's life, dreams and future. She will never meet all the people she would have met, have the failures and successes of it's life, or doing something as simple as enjoying a glass of wine ... not to mention the rest of the broken hearts and shattered dreams in that family she left in her wake. Wanting someone to die is left to a special, dark place in my heart...but this person qualifies unconditionally.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 12:14 PM) We have two back-up systems, but the problem is it'll cost more to have IT people come get the backup stuff loaded back onto our server (on top of making sure all of the computers and server are clean). Our IT guy actually said it's easier/cheaper to just pay the ransom and they've been told that security companies have monitored what happens after you pay and it actually does unencrypt the files and uninstalls itself. We got a pre-paid card and provided the information to the hackers via the program. Unfortunately it takes up to 48 hours to verify payment. So that's awesome. Your IT guy is right, it is easier/cheaper, however, your IT guy is also at fault, and should be fired for allowing this to happen in the first place.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 09:33 AM) Just did a quick calculation: If there are 800K employees furloughed, their average take home pay is $1500, and they are missing just over half their paycheck, that's about $700 million that is not getting put out into the economy this weekend. It'll get put back out into the economy as soon as this ends and they receive all their back pay.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 11, 2013 -> 09:33 AM) Do more argue for the use of the atomic bombs in WW2 or chemical weapons? As you noted, there is debate over the use of atomic bombs in WW2. There is no debate on chemical weapons. We seek to destroy chemical weapons where we find them, but allow Christian countries to keep atomic weapons. Where is the logic in that? Since when was any of this logical? Chemical weapons are easier to create/make/distribute would be their worry. It's hard to carry around an atomic bomb, not to mention make one...at least right now. But again, none of it's logical...so don't try to bring logic into the discussion.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 10, 2013 -> 10:14 AM) We all but eliminated polio from our society. We won WW1 and WW2. We landed a man on the moon!!!!!!!! We've done some things right. But a website shouldn't cost anywhere near a billion dollars. Ever. Ever ever. Ever ever ever. Especially one that hardly works.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 9, 2013 -> 12:45 PM) Sigh, sprint. Wasn't your carrier, the maker of the phone.

I haven't spoken to them ... too soon are the only words I can think up as to why ... but there is little doubt in my mind that the people I once knew are gone forever. I cannot even fathom what would happen if this was me, it would rob me of my will to live, or care about anything ever again.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Oct 9, 2013 -> 12:56 PM) Yea, messed up doesnt even begin to cover it. One place you would think would be safe for your child, and that happens This one is a bit closer to home than I'd prefer, not just in location, but I happen to know the parents personally. I just ... have nothing.

http://oaklawn.patch.com/groups/police-and...ged-with-murder I'm sure some of you may have heard or seen this story on the news, but what in the hell...