Tag: tax

Denmark vs USA

Facebook, where the ideas coalesce, and intelligent folks discover just how stupid some are.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.”

The great common denominator of the day is social media. It levels the field as it were and if you are of a mind to “let it all hang out” here is your soapbox!

Blogs are another good place to be shown as a fool, if you are indeed one.

Today one of my friends posted on Facebook this “Occupy Democrats” post regarding Denmark and how wonderful it is.

Without further investigation one would happily share this and ask, what the hell, why cant we do that?

Free University
Free Childcare
Free Healthcare

First off my friends, there are no free lunches. Just like lunches; there are no free Universities, or childcare, or healthcare. Someone pays for it! They have to! So who and how is the question.

Denmark enjoys a tax rate of 55.4% at the low end up to 65.9%..
Denmark also has a VAT or Value Added Tax of 25%

All of this free stuff is broken out into different sections of their overall tax structure, much like the USA except ours is like 39%

So for you who did not pay attention in school when we talked about such things as math, lets do a little exercise should we?

That highly skilled Burger flipper is getting $20 and hour. Immediately 55.4% goes to taxes so he or she is in effect making $8.92 an hour.

The VAT is pretty flat at 25% on frivolity such as that burger (prepared food vs. grocery store food,) so that burger if this is correct is $5.60 plus $1.40 VAT making that burger $7.00. That is not the drink or fries, just the burger.

Folks, that $18.000.000.000 in debt that This President has put us in with Obama care and all of his entitlements will force the next president to institute a VAT or some other form of taxation to pay for this. If not that than most likely there will be a worldwide economic collapse as the countries monetizing their debt (printing money buying our own debt with faux money) with their house of cards, will come crashing down.

Liberal thinking must be a mental disease. Only an insane person would walk a country down the road to its destruction, like we have done during the last 6 plus years!

The Danes have the free universities to encourage people to take advantage of it for higher paying jobs and to be globally competitive. Obama wants the tax payers to foot the bill for higher education for certain people to be more competitive but, his agenda is social justice, not world competitiveness.

The Danes can hire and fire at will as they are not constrained by the laws that we have in this country so I look for business owners here to be under attack as well.

The work week in Denmark is about 35 hours a week for the women and 41 hours a week for the men.

Denmark tries to keep their commuting time down to a minimum which is in stark contrast to the US where we have “downtown” as the place to work, forcing people to sit in long lines of traffic burning fossil fuels, and wasting hours and hours a week sitting, breathing carbon monoxide, and other noxious fumes.

The Danes on average live longer than Americans and I would have to think that their commute plays a role in the equation.

If the US had the brains of the Danes, they would think outside the box and Decentralize business’s as to cut down on congestion on the freeways.

A couple of other differences between them and the US is the amount of people and types of government.

I noticed that I have some readers in Denmark, if I have something wrong, or you would like to contribute please do.

My facts come from hours of research and I am certain that I don’t fully appreciate the eccentricities of your government and its taxation schedules and lets face it, the facts that I have found could be in error.

Either way; it appears to those of us that know how to use a calculator that when it all boils down to the nuts and bolts, our burger flippers are making about the same as your burger flippers, ours are simply having to pay extra for the things that your high taxes are paying for currently.

-Best

They’re on TV, they know the right answer!

Not so fast… Liberal hacks have been spewing out verbiage (verbal garbage) for years, and people suck it up as the Gospel.

Why? You see them on the “silver screen” and they appear “all knowing!”

They are actors, which is what they do, they act! Do you think that the “actors in Big Bang really have a clue about particle physics? I am dubious that they could spell Higgs-Boson much less know one if it bit them in the ass! Please understand I have no ill feelings towards this group of actors. I have watched them through most of their careers and enjoy their talents. If I met them however; would I like them? Who knows?

Their entire claim to fame is that they can read a script, remember it long enough to regurgitate their lines and emote. I am certain that looks and who you know has a lot to do with it.

When liberal elites run things, it is almost never good for the “little people.” I would expand that to say the “elites” period.

Let’s take the tax code for example. Each and every election cycle we have people talk about changing it, making it simple. Makes for great talking points and for a great control of the narrative but in reality, it will never be simplified. It is thousands of pages of text which benefit the people with the gold, written by the people with the gold for the people with the gold! It is a way to legally extract money from you and give it to them or at least distribute it in ways that buys votes from the disenfranchised, aka those who refuse to work no matter what! There is a part of the population that vote, as their sole job, they vote for a living; and you pay them to do it.

Hey Hollywood, if your so damned bright how come California is bankrupt? How come every liberal idea of socialism and communism has never worked in history, ever! The only people that this ideology benefit is the 1% who look down from their ivory tower and say stupid shit like “let them eat cake” thinking cake is cheaper than bread!

If Guns are so damned evil, how come you guys have them? You want gun laws for the peasants, but not for you. The people know, and surely you must know; that laws are for the people who are not criminals! Passing gun legislation will only hurt law abiding citizens.

If you don’t like guns, don’t buy them! If I were president; I would push legislation that would have every “able” person in the country that was willing and able to take the proper course and get from the government free guns and ammo. Once every year or two they come in and re-fresh their proficiency and renew the certification. Don’t you know that crime would go down to nothing! We who make an industry out of locking people up would change that quickly. Would more people die in burglaries and other stupid criminal acts, Yes! Would the courts be busy at first, probably, why? Because people, (dumb people,) would test the system. There are stupid people out there that would have to see if grandpa or grandma would really shoot them. “Tap it three times grandma!”

The truth is that the typical response time for a 911 call is twenty minutes. Let me say that again, TWENTY MINUTES! Do you have any idea how fast a criminal can kill you and your entire family and be gone? Long before the first police car ever arrives on the scene.

By the time you hear the door kicked in, pick up the phone “instead of a gun,” that bad guy is already in your home looking for you, and or a family member. Now you can grab your shotgun and fire a warning shot like Mr. Biden suggested, or you can call 911 and try to stay alive while the cop finishes eating dinner, or writing up that guy that was going 5 miles over the speed limit, or investigating a domestic disturbance or; you can pick up your gun, that you know how to use and save the taxpayers some money, and your life!. The simple truth is that the cops will get there in time to write up the incident (most of the time.) What will they be writing up? If you have a gun that Matthew Mcconaughey and other liberal silver screen people (who have guns and body guards) think that you don’t need, or should not have, they hopefully will be writing up that there is either an injured or dead person that was attempting a break in, which needs to be dealt with.

When the people that you love from the silver screen come out and advocate for this or that or for some candidate remember that you have no idea who that person is, or what they are about. I loved Ed Asner. Did I really? Lou Grant, Mary Tyler Moore and even the bumbling news anchor Ted Baxter. Those are the people I loved, to watch.

Ed’s philosophy and activist rolls he has taken are diametrically opposite of mine in every way. This man believes that we took down the Twin Towers. When he talks in public do you see him as the lovable, intelligent all knowing news editor, Lou Grant?

Mr. Obama seems like a real nice person. I am certain that I could be friends with him but, as president I could not agree with his politics. With him, I learned and embraced the word “Feckless.” That is a terrible thing to have to admit and relate to a sitting president. I thought that Jimmy Carter would go down in history as the worst president ever, I think he got spared that title. I think President Obama’s ideology is flawed beyond repair. I do believe that he believes that what he is doing is good. This is the classic Ivory tower syndrome. Cake is not bread Mr. President. People need a hand up, not a hand out, Mr. President. With your approval rating so low, how about stop governing by the damned polls and just do the right thing. Stop leading from the rear! If you are lost; call me. I don’t have a red phone but I am certain that your guys can find my number. I am not a yes man and will tell you like it is! I am older than you; and I probably know more history than you do. I have run a company and I know how balance a budget, I do like it when you don’t have the teleprompter, when you talk and it is from you, and not half a dozen script writers.

Did I say script?

Yes, Script, only Mr. Obama does not memorize it, he simply reads it. His wife has aspirations of being on the silver screen too, as she has been in at least one show that I saw; Parks and Recs. She is pretty and has the right connections, so who knows.

I am unsure what drives people to want to be on the silver screen in the first place; I suspect narcissism but, psychology is not my main interest. This country is!

I dislike the process of politics. What kind of life is it where one begs for money and votes the entire time that they are in the public eye? No damned wonder nothing gets done in Washington, they are too busy setting things up for their next election!

Things need to change so these guys can actually get some work done.

I have some ideas that would fix it and guess what, they are from history and some are simply common sense which, we as a nation seem to be short of these days!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing! Scene 5 of Macbeth, if memory serves…

-Best

Out of the box thinking continued…

After doing a little research on prisons, I have come to the conclusion that there are huge financial gains for “thinking outside the box” on this issue.

The average cost to house a prisoner is $20k per year, give or take. These include statistics in states where there is over crowding and states where there is not.

http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/Price_of_Prisons_updated_version_072512.pdf

What if we took all prisoners with non-violent offenses, although I would start with the 75 thousand non-violent drug offense inmates and made farmers out of them? This could be their choice but, time off for good behavior while learning how to farm and become productive would be a win! Monitoring of them could be easier and less expensive with technology i.e. drones or proximity devices etc.

The simple facts are that this cost “the tax payers” tons of money each year, both at a state and federal level.

If we were able to get the 75 thousand currently sitting in prison on non-violent drug offenses off the prison role and working on a farm being productive, that alone is $1.5Billion a year of tax money that could be used for something else.

Now how many are in prison for other non-violent offenses?

Factor into this the folks that are on welfare that can work and don’t, as well as the street folks who might want to take part in this, (comes with a place to live, heat and food.)

Lets get them to grow staples that the country needs and then they all of the sudden are a “profit center” if you will.

Between making a business out of housing criminals, entitlement spending and spending on aliens that are here illegally; tax payers bear one hell of a burden. We really need some “out of the box thinkers” to address these problems.

We really need some of these thinkers for the illegal alien issues here in this country. I really hate to use that terminology for them. If I lived there, I would do my best to come here as well. While I would do my best to come through the front door, that is certainly a lot easier said than done. Some of the basic arguments that I read are false however. There are plenty of “white people” that will do those jobs. There are plenty of “Americans” that will do those jobs. To say that white people and or Americans are too lazy to do them is a blatant falsehood and offensive to me. If you need work, you will do what you have to. If the government is paying you not to work, well that is really the cruckst of it, isn’t it? Who would dig ditches if the government will pay you stay home and watch The View or some other absolute mind-rotting nonsense?

Propaganda comes in all shapes and sizes. It comes from those that you “trust” on the nightly news, to shows from Disney with fuzzy little creatures. Third world countries are not the only ones brainwashing their citizens. While we can still get multiple views on certain topics, some countries have state run everything so the only “view” that they get is whatever the “government in power” wants them to have.

Currently we have the first amendment (free speech.) That however is under attack by the political correct police. This needs to be stopped. If what you say offends others let them not listen to you. They have the right to not listen just like you have the right to make a complete and utter ass of yourself. If I can control what you say under the guise of political correctness, than I can have free reign on a myriad of subjects and you cant say anything bad about. Friends, that is not right and “UN-American!”

The real trick is finding the multiple views as for some reason the media is in love “or in bed” with the progressives in this country. I personally read news from all over the world as there is always something going on that other countries find newsworthy. The BBC which is liberal is for the most part “right” of most of our media.

It would be refreshing to have objective journalist again. It would seem that the only time that they are tough on the government is when the GOP in charge. I am not saying that the GOP is right, what I am saying is that we need objective standards in the media. If the president drew a crowd of 5000 at some event, both FOX and CNN should say 5000, not “that there were only a few thousand” or “there were absolutely THOUSANDS that showed up for the event!” Both statements are correct, and both are misleading.

There are thousands of folks out there “speaking of thousands” who have probably thought about these issues from time to time. Let’s noodle this around a little and see what we can come up with. Let’s have a little “enlightened conversation.”

-Best to you and those that you care about!

An Open letter to those that can make a change, “You.”

Today I want to talk about the uber poor.

Currently there exist three classes of folks; The Rich, the middle class and the poor. I would argue that there are more than this. I would argue that there are five classes, the Uber rich, Rich, middle class, poor and very poor.

Anyone with over a Billion dollars is Uber rich. When you get into this club you have enough “gold” to make the rules.

The rich are really just upper middle class as they cannot make the rules and must live by the ones created by the uber rich however; since they are in the upper middle class they know some of the folks who make the rules and can have influence.

Before you write me and tell me uber rich don’t make the rules, I know congress makes the laws / rules but I am also savvy to Avenue K and lobbyist and who hires them…

I am skipping the middle class at the moment to jump to the poor.

The poor have apartments, houses, cable TV, one or more televisions, at least one computer and have most likely figured out how to get enough government assistance or other “invisible income” to make up the difference between being poor instead of very poor. I would argue that these folks are really middle class; they for a large part just pay taxes as if they were poor or living in poverty.

Then there are the very poor, they are street folks who live under bridges and basically exist on the benevolence of others, charitable organizations or what they can find on their own.

Now we have the middle class. These are the folks that strive to be upper middle class or rich and really have too much pride to be anything else. These are the people that get up every day and go to work whether they feel good or not. These are the folks that take two jobs, take their kids to soccer, and do all of the other stuff that most do but they are driven to press on, to get ahead, to give their kids a “chance” at something better than what they have.

Some would argue that their eye might not be on giving their kids something better but on having more “do dads, or gadgets” or trying to keep up with the millionaires.

These are also the folks who have little to no control over the rules. These are the folks that try to vote for the right person, do the PTA thing, and use whatever influence they have to make a difference.

These are also the folks who are most taken advantage of, not only by the rich and uber rich, but the poor as well. These are the folks who the 9000 pages of tax code screw the most because they don’t have enough power to anything about it!

These are the folks who get the Cable, satellite radio, cell phones with data plans and other do dads to fill voids in their lives that life quite frankly is not fulfilling. These are the folks who have the “universal fees” taken out of their ass-pocket, not knowing that they are one of the government’s ways of redistributing wealth!

I was in a park not long ago. While there, a guy, “street person” walked by me. He smelled bad and was a good distance from me. That is not however what got my attention. He was talking on a cell phone. He was in fact calling 911 because one of his fellow street people had taken his trash bag full of stuff or so he alleged. I am certain that the local police were really happy that this gentleman was able to call 911 with his “emergency.”

This is the uber poor or poorest of the poor. Not only is he relegated to living on the street, carrying his stuff in a trash bag but, he has no support system. Even though this is Texas it still gets cold in the winter. Instead of getting these people phones, would they not be better served with some other assistance? Let’s start with clean dry clothes and a warm place to sleep and some warm food. Let’s get them some medical care, including mental health. Let’s teach them what constitutes and emergency. While I am certain that was an emergency to him, that call could very well take away from a real life and death situation. There are other numbers for non emergency stuff and that should be the number he used. Truth be told if he had called sanitation he most probably would have learned that they pick up and discard full trash bags left alone.

Some folks are there on the street because that is where they want to be, I get that. Some are there because of mental illness. Some are there because they have no training to get a job or are wrapped up in some sort of substance abuse problem and waiting to hit “true bottom.” Some are undoubtedly there because of “shit happens.“

These folks don’t need a cell phone or internet, they need help! There is no money to be made in helping these folks however; giving them something tangible like a cell phone and allowing them to vote without a picture ID makes perfect sense to the government, and creates “more useful idiots.”

The purpose of this diatribe is to offer a solution to the problem. Unlike Washington and the uber greedy, I think outside the box. So, take that cell phone money and cable TV money and all of those other “universal fees” that Carter started, Clinton pushed through and Obama expanded upon and do this.

Set aside government land outside of large cities that is “farm worthy.” Enlist faith based groups, and other groups like habitat for humanity and set these folks up farms.

I am not talking about buying $150K tractors, just land and some modest accommodations and some hand tools while they make it a working business. A mule pulling a plow worked for our forefathers, maybe that could be located until they could earn their own stuff. Using the habitat for humanity model, they must put in sweat equity… I would say they must stay clean, pass drug test etc but that is just common sense, isn’t it?

Farming is not rocket science but, it is becoming a lost art. Kids today who grow up on the farm are leaving it at alarming rates. Involve the Aggies in teaching these folks the principles of farming. As the population continues to grow, does it not make sense that we could use some more farmers?

Offer this to the street people that don’t want to be on the street.

Offer this to the poor and downtrodden trapped in desperate situations; in neighborhoods that are virtual war zones with drug and gang activity. Offer them a way out, a hand up.

Find leaders among these people to self police themselves. Assist these folks to regain some sense of self worth.

First, get them medical help including mental and drug rehab. Part of that is learning how to farm. They can learn to farm, run a business and sell their product on the markets. Subsequently they can make profits and purchase tractors and what have you. If they could just feed themselves, that would be a huge win! It would be a “shot!”

I would also offer these types of programs to the 75 thousand currently in prison for non-violent drug offenses. Put ankle monitors on them and give them a chance to re-deem themselves. Prison is no place to “rehabilitate oneself.” Prison is a good place to learn how to be a smarter criminal. What if we had them help the others to become something more than a lost soul.

If we could get 75 thousand out of prison which the American people are currently paying to house,feed and manage, as well as help the poor to re-gain their lives and self worth, would this not be “giving them a shot” Mr. President? Would this not be “spreading the wealth,” in a way that makes sense?

Wealth is not just money Mr. President, it is knowledge. If I give poor people money and phones and other stuff I am enabling the poor to stay poor and in effect, I am crippling them. I am giving them a handout, instead of a hand up! All they learn is how to take.. Kennedy said, “ask what you can do” (paraphrased) Should we not teach them to fish?

If I take currently non-productive people and give them a sense of purpose; is that not giving them a shot?

Instead of kicking this can down the road people, we need to take ownership of it and make it our problem; instead of our grandchildren’s’. We need more givers than takers and it starts now.

There are smarter people out there than I, and possibly with enough “think tank” collective from the American people, maybe something good can happen. We have enough bad things on the news each and every day, it is time for something good, don’t you think?

Here is the challenge to you the readers. I am not trying to get anything out of this. This is my way of giving back. Writing a letter to the white house would end up in file 13…the bin. One voice in the wind is one voice. I need millions of voices. The only way that this has a chance is to re-blog, re-post, re-tweet and make it as viral as possible. If enough read it, someone with some “influence” will get this to the right person or people. Maybe some Hollywood type that is tired of his or her tax dollars going to keep non-violent drug offenders locked up might think outside the box as well.

Let’s give this administration a positive way that they can “fundamentally transform this country in a good way” by teaching those that need help, how to help themselves.

Yes there are details that need sorting out and I would offer that private citizens do it. Maybe, just maybe some benevolent Capitalist might have some good ideas or contacts, or a way to help. If the government gets involved too heavily with the details, we will have another 9000 pages of tax code, 60 thousand earmarks, amendments creating turtle tunnels in the tundra, and nothing will ever happen to help these people. This process needs to be streamlined and someplace like Detroit might make a good pilot as that place “like Chicago” is a war-zone.

These kids need an out and learning how to take from the government is not it. Learning how to not get shot walking to school, or how to look innocent in a lineup is not what they need to be learning.

This would also work at the state level. How about it Mr. Perry, can you make this work and show the Country /World how Texans take care of things?

Some prisons have farms already, are some of those inmates candidates to teach others?

-Best to you and those that you care about, now get reposting… Thanks!

Taxes and SEX?

It never ceases to amaze me at the absolute euphoria people exude, when they get their check from the IRS. Everything from a down payment on a new car or furniture or other household trappings are purchased. It maybe money spent towards a vacation, or maybe to pay off some credit card bill that you have had to carry a balance on. They seem to have forgotten that this was their money to begin with and that they are getting a small part of it back!

The parasites are also out to capitalize on your “good fortune” as well. Tax preparation services who only charge a “small percentage” to get you the most back from the “evil” IRS. Then there are the check cashing folks who only charge a “small percentage” to cash your government issued check. While there, the tellers will try and sell you lottery tickets instead of allowing you to take your money and run. There are businesses’ that will cash your check at their store, in hopes that you will buy stuff at their store. My favorite however this year is the “bunny ranch”

Dennis Hof who owns and runs a “legal brothel” in Nevada will cash your government issued checks by trading it for “bunny bucks.” He gives you two bunny bucks for one government dollar (so the story goes) which in today’s economy isn’t a bad trade except of course, the only place to spend bunny bucks is well on “professional services” at his brothel. www.bunnyranch.com

I personally would like (one) bunny buck, just to hang up next to my million dollar “fake bill” as that is what it is worth outside of the ranch. My hats off to his “entrepreneurial spirit.”

If your employer just gave you the money you earned, and then let you settle your taxes every two weeks with the different agencies both state and federal, we might hear a little louder scream from those who think that the government is currently doing a good job. The simple facts are that you never see it, everything happens behind the scenes through the payroll department. Unless you work in that department, you really have no clue how much of your weekly pay is going to someone else. They are simply numbers on a stub. Much like the “Paper or Plastic” article, that I wrote earlier, what you don’t handle you don’t really miss. It doesn’t make that much of an impact!

Consultants often do work that way. They are giving something called a 1099 which reports to the IRS that you were paid X amount of money and by April 15^th they have to come up with everything that is normally taken out of others paychecks and then some as there is the “self employment tax.” I would guess that those folks have a very keen understanding and appreciation of our “tax code.”

If you really want a wake up call, something to stir you inner emotions about the current tax code, do this. Add up all of the taxes and things taken out of your check everyweek. Next time you are at the bank, withdraw that amount, whatever it is and take it home and look at it. Count it a few times. Understand exactly how much you are giving away to “who knows where.” Now multiply that pile of money by 52 if you are a weekly employee and imagine what that pile of money would look like then!

Puts a little different spin on that windfall now doesn’t it. The simple facts are that revising the tax code is long over due. If you really want your head to explode start looking at how the government is spending your money. Really pay attention to where it is going and for what. Protracted wars fighting for people who hate Americans. Green power companies that go bankrupt after using all of the taxpayers money up. Million dollar golf outings to play with Tiger Woods. Sending tanks and aircraft to Egypt, to the Muslim Brotherhood. Who made that deal?

I could be wrong but I think his Ivory tower is so tall, that he really has lost sight of those that he is supposed to be working for. Maybe it is the thin air up there as I remember he had issues with that in Colorado during the 1rst debate.

According to the CCH Standard Tax Reporter, the U.S. tax code began with about 400 pages in 1913. Twenty-six years later there were still only 504 pages, but then it exploded to 8,200 pages by 1945. This blossom of growth was caused in part by finding ways to fund WWII.

It got to over 60,000 pages before the end of the first term of President George W. Bush, and it has now reached over 72,500 pages by the end of the third year of President Barack Obama’s current term of office. Politicians and bureaucrats are consistently adding or modifying this document, making it the monster that it is.

Does this seem like it is getting simpler to you?

In speaking with accountants who know this stuff they are left scratching their heads and searching through new books and guidelines to figure out the correct answer. The only people who can afford to do their own taxes are the people who don’t own a home, possibly rent and have no real property. Folks, we are going the wrong way with laws and taxes.

Every candidate running for office always talks about making it easier, flat tax and so forth and now you can see; that was never the plan. Today we learned that we will be printing $40 Billion a month with no end date. That works out to $1.1 Trillion a year! Feel your money shrinking yet? Wait till bread is $100 a loaf; then maybe the rest of the people will get the message.

-Best to you and those that you care about!