Sunday, April 13, 2008

Jimmy and the boyz

It seems Jimmy is back, doing what every past president isn't suposed to do, anything. He is off to the mid east to talk to our enemies, thet is the Stae department's job num nuts! And liberals wonder why we call him the worst pres of our lifetimes

the money quote is this
Although he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, Carter outlined
distinct goals.
"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet
with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility
they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians
in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the
Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind,"
he said.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351109,00.html

text follows


WASHINGTON — Former President Jimmy Carter said he feels "quite at ease" about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel.
Speaking from Katmandu, Nepal, where he and a team of observers from the Carter Center monitored national elections, Carter said the U.S. and other parties should not require "pre-requisites" before meeting with the terror group. Hamas has not renounced violence, regularly bombs Israeli towns near its stronghold of Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel's existence.
"Well, you can't always get prerequisites adopted by other people before you even talk to them," Carter said in an interview taped Saturday but aired Sunday on ABC News' "This Week."
"I feel quite at ease in doing this," he said. "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."
FOXNews.com first reported Tuesday on an item in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat that said Carter was preparing an unprecedented meeting with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of Hamas who lives in Damascus.

A senior Hamas official confirmed reports of the meeting Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
Several State Department officials, including the secretary, Condoleezza Rice, criticized his plans. Carter said he had not heard the objections directly, although a State Department spokesman said earlier that a senior official from the department had called the former president.
The StateAlthough Department says it advised Carter twice against meeting representatives of Hamas, which Washington lists as a terrorist organization.
"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said Friday, after reports of the planned meeting surfaced.
"The State Department made clear we do not think it's useful for people to be running to Hamas," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said after Carter's appearance. Hadley added the U.S. as well as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has sent a "very clear message to Hamas about what they need to do" to be included in peace talks.
he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, Carter outlined distinct goals.
"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind," he said.
Carter said he'd be meeting Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudi Arabians and others "who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East." According to the Carter Center, Carter's "study mission" was taking him to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan this week.
Carter, a broker of the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his conflict mediation as president and since.
Pressure to drop the meeting has come from his own party. Democratic Reps. Artur Davis of Alabama, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Adam Schiff of California and Adam Smith of Washington state wrote a letter to Carter saying the meeting could confer legitimacy on a group that embraces violence.
"I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said.
Carter also said he would oppose a U.S. Olympic boycott and hopes all countries will join in the Beijing games. Carter boycotted the Moscow Winter games in 1980 in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
"That was a totally different experience in 1980, when the Soviet Union had brutally invaded and killed thousands and thousands of people," he said, rejecting the idea of boycotting the Beijing games to protest China's crackdown in Tibet. He did not address whether just the opening ceremonies should be boycotted.
In Nepal, where the Dalai Lama has lived since his ouster from Tibet, incomplete election returns show the country could turn from rule by royal dynasty into a democracy with former Maoist rebels in a strong position.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Taxes

Let’s take care of Inky (Enky seems to be the more used spelling, I will make the change). Here is Rosen’s page and the IRS page I assume he got the information from, there is also a reference to another group, don’t have a clue who they are, you can bet they are anti tax. As far as I know Rosen and Knarly are the only two relevant in this thread that have an economics degree. I can use the four functions on a calculator, but anything over about 9th grade math and I’m stumped.

http://www.koaradio.com/pages/shows_rosen.html?feed=119739&article=2777167

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html

Now to the taxes:

Let me start of by saying I don’t know where you got the idea I was against taxes in general. I’m not. When I used to backpack a lot there was an adage; take all the things you absolutely need, all the things you would like to take but don’t need, and all the things you don’t need at all and put them in three piles. Take the first pile, put it in your pack and leave the rest home. When it comes to all the things government can provide us I think we all agree there are some things government has to provide. National defense, police protection, a court system, a minimum level safety net for the poor, that type if thing. On the other end of the spectrum is the ultimate goal of communism, where the government controls all our lives from cradle to grave. None of us are advocating either of those extremes, we are discussing what we are going to take from that middle pile for our backpacking trip.

My want for corporations to pay no taxes is no more realistic than your hope for a world without war, I realize this, it is a utopian dream, but what the heck. If this dream were to come true, it would not be to reduce taxes out alone eliminate them. Individual taxes would have to be increased to make up the difference. The purpose of my wanting to eliminate corporate taxes is that I consider them to be a “hidden” tax, and I hate hidden taxes, don’t tell people their tax rate is 20% when it is 40% when everything is included, they need to look at their paychecks and see 40% taken out.

I’ve explained how the tax structure works in simplified terms and at Knarly’s request I am trying to keep this short, so ask questions. (after finishing, I realize I failed to keep this short, keep reading, it’s worth it)

To Knarly’s question about the summer cottage we refer to as a “research facility” (RF). In the United States we have a voluntary tax reporting structure, you fill out a few rather broad categories on your tax return. Random audits are done to determine some baselines and if your return falls within those guidelines no one questions it. What keeps everyone honest is the realization they may be picked for one of those random audits. So we all keep boxes of documentation in our file cabinets. The answer to you question is I don’t think it would make any difference one way or the other. In today’s system the RF is billed as, well, an RF. Some of the best ideas come after a couple scotch and waters in the hot tub they say. Unless an IRS agent pours over the documents for a month no one is going to know. In my system no one cares if the company owns the RF, but if it is not really being used for legitimate research it should be listed as wages to someone. If it isn’t then it will still be up to that pesky IRS agent to find that it wasn’t. Crooks will find a way to skirt the law. What I like about this idea is it eliminates “corporate welfare” there is nothing to deduct if there is nothing to deduct from. I have seen so many corporate decisions foolishly made for tax reasons. I have seen truck loads of perfectly good components destroyed because the company didn’t want to pay taxes on those items. That is a “green” problem we can address with a stroke of a pen.

What money isn’t used for legitimate expenses and isn’t used to pay dividends simply sits in an account ready to be used if a new drug looks promising or a new form of energy can be developed. I don’t care if a company has billions in its coffers, leave it there. But of course greed from any number of people including investors, politicians trying to buy a vote, and folks smart enough to run a company will never let that happen. It’s utopia.

And so it goes…..

Linda Ellerbee