Taxpayers like housekeepers, janitors, etc. have been building sport palaces for billionaires for decades. The Buffalo Bills got a new stadium thanks to their mutant governor. I spend winters in San Diego and was so proud of the citizens when they voted down a new stadium TWICE, telling the Chargers to go shit in their hat. When given a choice, taxpayers almost always say no to billionaires. The federal govt. gives us no choices. "There is no freedom without choice."
Progressive elites are demanding that those same housekeepers, janitors, etc., pay off their student loans for them. Those critical studies degrees aren't cheap.
"Progressive elites" don´t have student loans! If they did, they would not be elites as elites don´t need no stinkin loans! And anyway, reducing the effects of loan burdens on the upcoming generation ultimately benefits ALL of America, while moon shots benefit nobody.
Sorry, Delia. Gotta think govt funded space travel benefits no one when deserving people need education and welfare rather than a man on the moon. We been there done that and have a few rocks for the effort and proof of some mathematical theories.
● Do you wear glasses that don't scratch as badly as they used to?
● Have insoles that keep your feet from getting tired as quickly as they used to?
● Use or know somebody who uses an insulin pump?
● Have a cameraphone?
● Use cordless tools?
● Notice you don't have to change your tires as often?
● Have a water filter attached to your tap or to a pitcher?
● Use a GPS?
● Have a memory foam mattress or chair?
● Have smoke detectors in your home?
● Drive on roads that aren't as slippery when wet as they used to be?
● Use wireless headphones or earbuds?
● Use a laptop?
● Use a mouse with your laptop?
● Have LED backlight on your laptop, LED lights in your home, or a LED digital television?
That's only some of the things which you use every day you wouldn't have had without space travel. There's also the potential of more natural resources out in space that we can use, and ease the overpopulation here on Earth....
OMG - such a bogus list. This was obviously put together by a NASA PR expert. There are glaring lies! I do not have time to go through each item so I´ll just start with "insulin pump". Real story: "The first insulin pump was the size of a microwave oven.
As early as 1963, Dr. Arnold Kadish developed an insulin pump that was portable in a backpack and was roughly the size of today's microwave oven. With the help of this system, better blood sugar levels could be achieved compared to conventional insulin therapy. However, this monster of a pump was anything but suitable for everyday use. Also the risk of infections was quite high due to the venous access. Nevertheless, the system of Dr. Kadish was the pilot system for what we have today. Then there is "computer mouse"!!! Weren´t you even a bit suspicious? Well, guess what, it was the result of a COMPUTER Technology research group! Duuu. Look up Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute. Next time do a little thinking and research before just blithely finding some junk on the internet that back up your position!
At least Federal Student Loan Forgiveness would lift countless college students out of privatized debt slavery courtesy of our current President and PUNISH Bankster Usurers (an Act in Grace in its own right), unlike this plan with just gives Musk's and Bezos's erections a shot of Federal Viagra.
Stop deflecting and defending Billionaire sociopaths who refuse to pay their lowest employees, the ones you PRETEND to be sympathetic to(!), a living wage....
How in hell is it even considered that people who choose not to attend University get the "privilege" of paying for those who do? Time to expose these attacks on working people by elite over educated white collar losers. Might consider a "TAX STRIKE." After all they can't lock up millions of working people for NOT paying their taxes. Just file on time and don't include a check and request an extension to pay. That might get their attention and is NOT illegal.
Class bias is not the point; forgiving debt is the point. Education to whatever degree should be freely provided, just as it was for decades before the neoliberal revolution.
There were many colleges that offered free or low cost educations to qualified candidates. CCNY, Brooklyn College and others that is true. Private and Ivy League institutions were always pay as you go schools.
Studies seem to indicate that most all school debt is held by the upper 20 percent of household wage earners and their families. At the lower end of the continuum there is relatively little outstanding debt. I paid over the years for my wife's and two children's college with loans which I repaid with interest. Forgiving this type of debt appears to be a political play to "get votes" not an economically driven policy predicated on what is good for America. Make them interest free and stop the collection system that is currently chasing people. But forgiving the entire loan appears pretty unfair (pay your fair share mantra is used against wealthy people) to very large segments of the population. What is the upside -- graduates have more disposable income for vacations, cars and just living well? Doubt very much if people are becoming homeless or bankrupted by student loan repayments since there are many, many options and ways to solve this issue. BYW Joe Biden was one that made a law that a bankruptcy filing could not discharge a student loan whan he was owned an operated by the Banks in Delaware. Suddenly a 180 degree change in his prior position. Politics trumps everything.
I went back to university for a Master's degree and took out loans, not for tuition, but for living expenses. Afterwards, I was able to pay it back because I really did get a job sufficent.
However, that is not the point. You show the dominant view that all debts are sacred and all debts must be paid. That belief drives the modern economic system; however, it is neither sacred nor useful. Student loans are not forgivable in bankruptcy court, so they exist zombie-like for the life of the borrower, no matter the quality of that life. So, interest free loans and bankruptcy protection would really help.
Over millennia, it has been socially, economically, and politically convenient to forgive all personal debts and allow for a 'restart'. In Biblical times, this was the Jubilee, formulated in Jesus' Lord's Prayer, "...forgive us our debts as we forgive the debts of others..." Note that this was mistranslated on purpose by the English to "forgive us our trespasses..."
There is no reason other than inertia to build an economy on debt investment, no reason other than habit, to tie debt investment to interest. What debt investment interest accomplishes is the creation of a rentier class where instead of land rent, there is people rent.
What you state is a charitable POV. Economic systems are based on trial and error over thousands of years. The idea of debt and repayment is one of the main pillars of our economic system. "Loaned" money can be utilized for many things such as starting a business, moving to a better location, paying for personal education, and on and on it goes. The importance of repayment is a serious thing so that lending money does not become a hit or miss proposition and the assurance of repayment then fosters the confidence for others to lend funds that in turn enrich the economy. Debt is in fact an investment in the future and the repayment reassures lenders continue to lend with confidence. If all lending stopped or was truncated because repayment became a matter of chance our system would collapse as it almost did during the Great Depression. As Milton Friedman said ALL debts are paid one way or another. Either by the debtor or by the lender. You seem to believe that the forgiveness makes the debt disappear. It only transfers that obligation back to the lender. When the gov't or banks are the lender as with student loans ALL the taxpayers then discharge the debt by forgiving it. Like many people you appear to believe that the creation of money without producing something of value somehow is a benign activity.
Current inflation in some ways is a hidden repayment system. The more money you pour into the economy without an equal increase in production the less that money is worth. Forgiveness of personal debt is a nobel thing but on a super scale by a gov't it becomes an economic drag on the robustness of that economy. Like subsidizing non-producers is a charitable thing to do until they out number the producers then it wrecks any balance and returns us to the survival of the fittest economic state. As a third party forgiving debt might make you feel better but it actually injures the lender and in the end the entire citizenry who depend on a balanced economic system. It is not habit that creates interest on debt but. a premium for risk assessment that the debt will be repaid.
Uh - no, not any more, they don't! I went to a four-year college on scholarship for a year until they doubled their tuition and my scholarship didn't match it, so I enrolled in a community college so I could at least get an AA in my major. In the 1970s it was tuition-free (a trivial processing charge aside - $12 at the time, which even I could afford), but when I moved to NYC and tried in the mid-Eighties to continue my education, the community college there charged $100/credit! From what my brother who still lives there tells me, community college is less but still out of reach for working-class people who want to send their children there - $550/semester if you're taking 12 units.
That's FAR from the "free or low-cost education" you're insisting still exists - maybe you should check YOUR facts?
My first sentence was "There WERE". I was speaking of City colleges in the 50's, 60's and 70's as an example. If $550/a semester is out of reach my guess is food might be in short supply too. No society can pay for everything individuals want or even need.
Higher Education (beyond H.S.) was always considered a great thing if you could some how afford it. Now it is a NECESSITY in some peoples eyes. Might be but supplying ALL necessities is a decision that is societies not some small group of arbitrators of morality. Voters are the ones who should decide what and who gets the largess or charity of the individuals paying for the privilege of assisting others in having a good life. Higher education might not be first on their list given the many.many other problems facing people trying to survive day to day to get shelter and a decent meal. I realize that "investing" in society by assuring a higher education is a good thing. Problem is today's graduates don't seem to offer much return for that investment. Just conversing with some is a joy while others are as clueless as they are assured in their fact-less assertions. People can and do differ on the distribution of resources and what is necessary and what is not so necessary.
I was thinking more along the lines of, oh, NOT paying the banksters back and forcing THEM to eat the cost of the student loans. It's not like they haven't already gotten $700 BILLION dollars from us with no strings attached, is it?
Not sure the banksters created this monster. Before gov't got involved Americans either went to college and found the means or worked to save and attend at a later time. The G.I. Bill upended the previous model for financing a University education. Later the idea of government sponsored loans "for education" became all the rage. The idea of an advanced education for everyone was never a proven concept but an assumption by those with a degree that this would be a good one size fits all idea. Are we really a better society after all this "education" of the masses? Maybe yes or maybe no. Have any definitive studies been done to prove the point that universal education after H.S. actually adds to societies vitality? Given that this was an educated guess by the very people who stand to make fortunes from that assumption I might. need a pause to take a second look at that assumption. The very vital individuals who keep our society running smoothly at the ground level do a fine job without knowing the plays of Shakespeare or the theories of CRT. It is obvious that graduates from the STEM courses do add great value to American society. Having a percentage of University educated people is necessary to move forward and for the innovations they often bring to any society. Is it necessary for every mediocre IQ dolt and uninterested dilettante to be financed by the public to attend University is a much harder case to make.
The administrators and professors of those institutions have every reason to push this concept of everyone getting a college education. Jobs and ever growing salaries seems to be the result of these policies and programs for those within the academic world. A universally educated and a critical thinking society does not seem the result of these idea. Just talk to any of the hot house orchids bing issued from these over priced sausage factories and you would marvel at their lack of an organized though process and nonexistante critical thinking skills. People have different skills, abilities and interests that cannot be addressed by a one size fits all college education.
About your point whether advanced education benefits society or not, evidence from California's decades of essentially free college, a program that I took advantage of, was clearly shown by the technical revolution when California had the educated workforce ready to step up to the moment. If you have not noticed, California became the powerhouse economy of the nation and I claim this was because of its investment in public education.
So why has it become a sinkhole of drug addicted, homelessness and general chaotic social interactions. A "have and have not" divided society where walls and security is necessary just to live without fear. Huge chunks of educated people are moving (fleeing) from this paradise of educated and informed people.
If the banksters weren't responsible, why would it be nearly impossible in America to get a job you can live on without a college degree? One reason truckers are so up in arms these days is that trucking is pretty much the only industry where a person can earn a living without having gone to college, and high fuel prices combined with the push for "driverless vehicles" is taking that away from them. (Another reason is that every truck driver I've ever met, including my youngest brother, only listens to Christian Right Wing Hate Radio and watches Fox News, but that's a chicken-and-egg argument for another day.) With unions so weak they could drowned in Grover Norquist's bathtub, there's no place for anybody who doesn't want to ask if you want fries with that to make a living.
Your response sounds to me suspiciously like Common Core, a heavy-STEM/no-humanities educational process beloved of Bill Gates, a man with nothing but contempt for the humanities himself. (I'd call him a "Borg", but I don't want to insult my avatar who used to be one.) What you call "hothouse orchids" are people who are taught the critical thinking skills you claim don't exist in college unless you're a STEM student (full disclosure - my major was in Communications, and my minor was in Psychology) - to me, STEM graduates' lack the critical thinking to see any problems that can't be fixed with their Techno-Libertarian worldview. (I don't call it a "philosophy" because Philosophy suggests the thoughtfulness that comes from the "hothouse orchid" education you sneer at.)
To me, nothing speaks more of the failings of STEM than what the Gates Foundation sees as solutions:
● Yes, they helped pay for COVID-19 vaccine development (as did the U.S. Government), but demanded it all be patented by the Pharmaceutical Corporations so they (including Gates, whose portfolio certainly includes those same corporations!) can profit off a global pandemic;
● Yes, they give lip service to concerns about climate change, but have over $1 Billion invested in fossil fuels;
● Yes, they say they want to feed the world, but it's all via Genetically-Engineered (and thus patented by Monsanto, Dupoint and Bayer) crops that farmers go destitute to purchase more of every year since they're not allowed by law or by GE to reuse the seeds.
All of the Gates Foundation's solutions are profit-based (from a "charitable organization" that's tax-exempt) and short-term (especially in their love of GE crops). THAT is what you get when you don't have the "hothouse orchids" you have so much contempt for around to demand accountability....
Might try getting out a bit more. I know scores of individuals who make a great living without any degree or even attendance in a college. Most all electricians, plumbers and good carpenters do pretty well. Many small and medium sized businesses are owned and run by individuals with some college but not necessarily graduates. the trucking industry is thousands upon thousands of drivers short and they are paying great salaries and bonuses to anyone with a CDC license. In Florida and Az commercial and home air conditioner installers and repair people make great salaries and many own their own businesses. The individuals with degrees are often employed in cubbyhole jobs paying little and boring them to death. Not true across the board true but enough that making a decent living does not require a 4 year degree. Try checking out the cost per hour for a good BMW mechanic and you might want to be retrained and open your own shop.
Janitors and House keepers are not tax payers. They get subsidy from the IRS provided for by the other people paying taxes. Only about 15% of the total population are paying taxes because leas than HALF of the population works:
60% of Households Now Receive More in Subsidized Income Than they Pay in Taxes
Actually, the poorest worker in the country pays a higher percentage of their income, just in FICA than most business and fat cats. And, Yes Virginia, the employer part of FICA is part of your income. Now add sales tax and city and state and fee's and and you'll see that the figures don't lie but the liar's use the figures.
That is a LIE. The poorest worker with the greatest amount of children get the most reimbursement.. Their TAX CREDITS pay for what ever miniscule amount they contributed to FICA. Aug 18, 2021More than100 million U.S. households, or 61% of all taxpayers, paid no federal income taxes last year,
The simple fact is that the lowest classes don't pay "Federal" taxes because they don't make enough money. The well off and the larger corporations don't pay much or any taxes because they own the government and their lobbies literally write the law's that make it possible. Hate the working poor if you want but it's the Rich robbing you blind.
One trick the super-rich have got very good at is hiding behind the moderately wealthy, who really do pay a lot in tax.
People like Postipressionist have completely fallen for that ruse, and think that if people making $100k/year pay their fair share in tax (and then some), then it must therefore follow that billionaires are also paying their fair share.
In reality, the moderately wealthy are effectively subsidizing both the poor AND the extremely wealthy, who pay little to no tax.
Do you have info to back this up? Link Please. Give me some numbers, not Just your opinion. We paid a lot of taxes before we retired. Who is RUSING us. It seems to me that if 60% get more back than they paid, we imported more poverty that we could pay for. Wages are considered according to availability of LABOR.
Labor Unions that were busted by CHEAP immigrant labor.
Construction in Los Angeles has shifted from a heavily unionized labor force that was two-thirds white to a largely non-union one that is 70% Latino and heavily immigrant. American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation. (2014 stats)
Redistribution? To do that the IRS would have to take on the extremely complex tax returns produced for the 1% by the income protection army of lawyers that work solely for that 1%. By contrast, Joe Average turns in a very simple tax return that the IRS can quickly investigate, and does. If there is any redistribution going on, it is indirect, by forcing the 1% to fund the lawyers who feed off of them thanks to complex income tax law.
You're still missing SALT and sales taxes, which can't be offset by federal credits.
In terms of percentiles, the bottom 50% and the top 1% pay fuck all in taxes. That's true of both personal and corporate tax. Everybody in between (above the bottom 50% but below the top 1%) is who pays the bills.
The latest government data show that in 2018, the top 1% of income earners—those who earned more than $540,000—earned 21% of all U.S. income while paying 40% of all federal income taxes.
Among those paid by the hour, 247,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 865,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum.
Median weekly earnings of the nation's 116.3 million full- time wage and salary workers were $1,010 in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Average Wages in United States increased to 27.06 USD/Hour (4329.6 USD/Month) in March 2022.
Sep 12, 2017The Census Bureau reported on Tuesday that the median household income was $59,000 in 2016,
In 2019, the average household income was as high as $69,560 and would have likely kept growing if not for the COVID-19 Pandemic. The median US income in 2020 was $67,521,
Median household income was $67,521 in 2020 = UP $9,904 in 4 years.
Wage is contingent on Supply/Demand. Biden Median household income FALLS to $67,463 in 2021 year and will continue to fall through the millions more border trespassers competing for jobs.
First of all janitors and housekeepers, assuming employers do their job right, pay social Security taxes known as payroll deductions or FICA.
Secondly, who gives a flip about housekeepers when billionaires who inherited their fortunes and live luxuriously on trust funds pay none.
Billionaires like Bezos and Musk pay a max of $8853.60 on a billion. same as someone making #142,800.
And leading defense contractors make billions.
Only 15% pay taxes?? i think not, but so what? There is no medical care for them, no advanced education, no hearing or dental or optical available to them but we spend billions on war products instead of care for those in need, and to say they are all on welfare is an out and out lie.
Why are you angry at the poor and defensive for the well to do?
I've listened to that bullshit about how why should i pay for someone else's insurance when i have to pay for my own a thousand stupid selfish times.
Billionaire Trump bragged about how smart he was to pay only $750 in taxes one year, yet you worry about a housekeeper not paying enough.
I despise this kind of bullshit class analysis. The poor pay more in terms of their lives than the wealthy ever do. You must know that everyone pays payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, property taxes (even for renters) and so on.
60% of the people who are working are getting back more. People on Welfare don't work too much. The top 20 % (quintile) pay 87% of the Taxes. The top 30% pay all the taxes which means only 15% of the population is paying for the other 85% The 4th quintile pays for it's self only and single has no deductions.
That means only about 25% of the population is actually paying "income taxes".
Do you really think the CINSUMPTION tax pays for $12,600 cost for one kid for a 1 year of Public School? $32,760 for a family with 2.6 kids.
Now look at the border. 2,000,000 last year. Biden plans on over 150,000 a month (add 1,500 a day Unapprehended walk overs.)
So not only will the taxpayer be funding Jeff's hobby but whatever he finds out there he gets to exploit and keep for his own profit. Congress should pass a law that ALL funding to NASA must be separate from the Federal budges and be voted on as a single budget item. ALL Congress persons must go on the record with their vote.
These newly minted super rich are as bad as the "Robber Barons" of old. They just cloak their greed in faux public works programs. At least the old Robber Barons created railroads that in the end were of useful to the public and created new wealth for America. Most of the citizens of the U. S. won't be riding rockets anytime soon. Please vote these morons out of office ASAP!
Does the funding include a staff of biologists to form a committee to decide whether an astronaut candidate is a woman? Can biologists also determine if a person is OF COLOR or not? How is this decided? Does each candidate get assigned a hex code (RGB value). Astronauts must be at least #b5651d? How else can they comply with this (obviously unconstitutional but who cares about that) law?
Today we all know sex and race are social constructs. Therefore, we know that Stacey Abrams is actually a white man, as that's the only way she could have gotten as far as she has. In fact, *any* person, black or white, man or woman or non-binary, who achieves anything, is actually a white man. Therefore, that person, whoever he/she/they appear to be, has no right to be where he/she/they is, and must be ousted posthaste.
Faster and faster these rotations out of power must occur, the faster the better, so we become dizzy and completely freaked out. As Bill Clinton (always has) said, "Change is good!" Don't worry, the adults are in the room, somewhere... We will soon beg them to save us from ourselves, just in the nick of time!
(I've been working hard at woke logic -- really I have -- but, hmmm, it appears to be backfiring ...)
They may not be interested, but if one is not permitted to be open about it -- and if the military is not prepared to deal with illegal consequences, e.g. assault and battery, following from it -- then, yes, it's a problem. One's freedom of expression is being illegitimately curtailed.
They will be prosecuted the same. What happened in the past? "Assault and battery" has no color or gender. "Pentagon has spent nearly $8 million to treat more than 1,500 transgender troops since 2016, including 161 surgical procedures." This is 6 years later. THAT is elective surgery. The government doesn't pay for elective surgery. If I join can I get a freed BOOB JOB to make me feel MORE Feminine? The answer is NO! That's "INEQUITY"!
Those are all, IMO, reasonable complaints, but they don't negate the fact that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is suppression of free expression:
Wikipedia: "The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service."
Declaring oneself as gay (as it could not be determined medically) during that time resulted in dismissal from the military -- and thus was unconstitutional government punishment based on speech. This fact is independent of any real or imagined issues with gays in the military.
That was between 2016 - 2017. Trump stopped "Gender Questionable People" from entering military service which saves money, and assault and battery, in the long run.
Speaking of tax payer funded grifters;Have you heard of GATE. The newest NGO affiliated “with strategic partners at the global level to provide knowledge, resources and access to UN mechanisms and bodies” 😏https://gate.ngo/
Agreed on the corporate welfare aspects here. We should award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder and move on, feelings be damned.
But I disagree heartily with your rejection of NASA's privatization of much of its work to develop rockets. Contractors did all the work for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, as well as Space Lab and the Shuttle. Look at the old videos of crews being loaded onto the rockets - technicians are wearing garb adorned with their companies' logos. Our private contractors allowed us to go to the Moon, while the Soviet Union never made it.
What's different is that NASA is setting goals and asking industry to come up with proposals to bid, just as defense contractors do. Competition results in better products for NASA. Prime example: SpaceX is running circles around Boeing with its Dragon crew capsule, which just delivered the first all-commercial crew to ISS, while Boeing's Starliner is still mired in technical difficulties and definitely not anywhere near ready for launch. What's the difference? I think it's because SpaceX has a fixed rate contract, while Boeing is paid cost-plus - no incentive for Boeing to control costs and just get it done!
Competition and private industry are essential to progress in space. Don't poo-poo them; harness them and get rid of crony capitalism.
We should perhaps also recall the old John Glenn quote here:
“I guess the question I'm asked the most often is: "When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”
But, I think Jeff Bezos has found a way around this problem: keep bribing politicians until they create a budget custom designed for your company's project. There's no need for a low bid. There isn't any bidding at all.
The sheer amount of monopolization is going to destroy what little competition is left and make it so that upstart companies with good ideas go nowhere and get bought out.
I don't have a problem at all with public/private either, and agree with you in objecting to the losing bid muscling in through politicians to get a contract when they blew the bid.
"Our private contractors allowed us to go to the Moon, while the Soviet Union never made it."
...aaand? I'm sure the Soviet Union is very sad about this. Oh wait, it doesn't exist as a geopolitical entity any more. I'm learning a lesson here -- going to the fucking moon is a prerequisite for durability as a geopolitical entity, apparently.
It's not about "durability as a geopolitical entity" but our human need to explore, and. yes, the possibility of commercial gain, too.
Queen Isabella supposedly pawned her jewels to pay for Columbus' trip. There is still a monarchy in Spain, but that didn't depend on underwriting Columbus. It depended on the open-mindedness to want to expand horizons (and perhaps also to make a profit). And that probably also meant Spain would get colonies if Columbus were successful, which he was. But I would never doubt the need to explore was part of the equation.
I wonder whether the "need to explore" -- and the lack of new physical topographies in which to do it (the moon is a rock in space) -- is one of the major crazifying praxes in modern society. It's why people get weird on the internet.
The only reason you think as you do is your belief in the neoliberal world order. Other ideological systems work quite well or better. The USSR beat the Americans to space in spite of enormous economical, political, and military challenges.
My 7th grade math teacher was a crazy old bat, but she had a certificate on the wall for being one of 50 finalists in the state or something for the Challenger Teacher in Space, and one day I got pissed off and said “Too bad you didn’t get picked!!!”
There is NO reason to return to the moon. What a waste. Perhaps we should re-stage Columbus’s trip across the Atlantic? A “Lewis and Clark” RV trip to the coast? And highlighting the useful trip with woke histrionics!!
We re-stage Columbus hundreds of times a day, only with modern ships that carry valuable cargoes. The Moon could have valuable resources of its own, serve as a waystation to Mars, or provide a base to exploit natural resources on asteroids.
Did you ever read/hear the Dave McGowan "Wagging the Moondoggie"? He had some interesting data on his website (now gone since he died), but apparently there are interviews with him where he goes over data from the US space voyages that doesn't make sense.
That Matt Taibbi was able to make that “Bezos/Seminal” reference without additional remark or comment is why I read the man. He trusts us.
And let’s not forget how much the public space dollars will inflate Bezos’ imagined intellectual prowess. NYT comments routinely describe him as a “genius”, and a “towering intellect”.
I imagine Einstein looking down from heaven muttering “Damn that Bezos!! If I’d only been able to figure out ‘Free Shipping!!’”
Bezos deserves to be pilloried and Musk has an ego the size of his new rocket. But Elon has also revolutionized heavy lift. Cost per kilo lifted to LEO has never been cheaper than what Falcon 9 can do it for. His contracts with NASA are for performance, not cost plus like all aerospace contracts have been since before Apollo. Contrast Falcon 9, and now Starship, with the cost plus NASA SLS program. 10s of billions spent for a rocket that is years behind schedule and still throws away all of its component parts as it flies as if the reusability revolution hadn't come to pass years ago.
There is a reason why Musk's entrant for a moon landing system was chosen. He has a history of delivering what's promised. It's because of Musk we can tell the Russians to go fuck themselves and stop buying rides on Soyuz to the ISS.
Troll away my friend. Russia had us over a barrel and over-charged us like crazy for rides to ISS. Not to mention, one of the first things they did is threaten to crash the ISS because the US didn't support Russia pulverizing women and children.
Having worked on US contracts to build alternative space delivery vehicles, whatever the Russians were charging was surely less than the money pissed away at home. Plus, they probably inspired Musk in the first place.
One would need to ask Musk or any member of his SpaceX team for particulars in this specific case. But speaking in general as an engineer, anyone getting something to work well is an inspiration to you.
You made the assertion. Point us to the reusable space craft that could have potentially inspired Elon Musk. Or where he's said he was inspired by a Russian concept of a reusable space craft.
Falcon 9 is not heavy-lift by any traditional definition. Performance-wise, the Falcon 9 is basically a Delta III class system so the low side of medium-lift is a more accurate description. Government launch production contracts are not cost-plus and have not been cost-plus since the days of Titan IV in which the launch processing elements of the program were allowed to function on a cost-plus basis. All recent Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Atlas and Vulcan awards are based on fixed-price arrangements. Your points about SLS are well taken and the reasons why the situation doesn't compute is because the SLS program exists to preserve selected critical skills and to keep certain corporate constituencies happy. That said, your comparison of the contracting basis for SLS (a development program) to Falcon (a mature production program) is not appropriate.
I’m so done with all these “firsts” and want no “ seconds.” This is all so ridiculously absurd, I’m risking an inappropriate joke…..I think the first woman on the moon must named Alice, she’s been waiting decades.
Setting aside the fundamental wrongness of (1) billionaires and (2) the rush to privatize and exploit everything that used to give Americans a sense of common cause, Bezos is the biggest jerk in this mess. Elon Musk may be a reprehensible human being, but what he's done for both the auto industry and the space launch industry is pretty good by 21st century standards. GM buried the EV1 to protect entrenched interests; Tesla eventually forced the whole auto industry to face the future. There are a lot of electric cars on the market now. Similarly, Lockheed and Boeing and Northrup Grumman were content to charge NASA and private companies very high fees for single-use launch vehicles for decades, until SpaceX proved it could be done an order of magnitude cheaper. And that is a good thing. Launch is a dominant upfront cost in robotic planetary missions. Right now, cheaper launch means more NASA science -- and that's a win for the public if you think understanding the Earth's climate, the solar system, and the universe is worthwhile.
(Funny side note: When you do rough cost estimates for science flight missions, the scientists usually work first and primarily with a dollar- and mass-cap for the payload and ignore launch costs entirely. The fights that go on about which spectrometer will fly are a real bummer if you actually think about what the rocket costs.)
Anyway: SpaceX won out on the Moon thing because neither NASA nor the private sector competitors can do launch as cheaply or as well. If that decision was upheld, I think the public interest and science would be relatively well served. I can ignore the stupid penis contest aspects of the thing if good rockets are being built and science and exploration are actually happening. This has always been the nature of spaceflight. It's icky and ridiculous, but 12 people walking on the moon was GRAND. Every time pictures of a new planetary surface come back, it is AMAZING. So, yeah. Pick a winner. Pay them out of NASA's feeble budget, and let's get on with things. And don't let Bezos whine and buy his way to a second place win at everyone's expense. That's super gross.
I was making an off-the-cuff statement based on discussions leading into white papers for the planetary science decadal survey. Although I'm totally willing to concede my memory being faulty, your example of two similarly priced contracts to separate launch providers is too narrow a piece of data to contradict my larger point. SpaceX has forced the cost of launch per kilogram down across the industry: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-cost-of-space-flight/
Ok. Here's another one for you. In 2019 SpaceX was awarded a $297M contract for 2 launches ($148M per) and ULA was awarded a $441M contract for 3 launches ($147M per). Again, no savings. The visual capitalist article is faulty because it attempts to make a grand argument for SpaceX value generation based on pricing for a block-buy of identical launch services (NASA's COTS program) which were not competitively bid and it uses an out-dated $/kg metric that, in the real world, is not a meaningful measure of how launch services are actually procured. You're buying into a lot of publicity and hype that simply isn't true.
I'm not going to have an internet argument with you. My understanding inside my professional sphere is that SpaceX had changed the game quite a lot, consistent with the Wikipedia article I linked. Certainly other launch providers are part of that trend. I'm not an aerospace engineer nor have I dealt directly with the parts of mission proposals that consider cost-of-launch trades. I'm fully willing to concede I may be wrong. Have a nice day!
Today is the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first manned spaceflight.
Afterward, Gagarin let fame go to his (ahem) head. He was banging a nurse in a resort hotel. When his wife barged into the room he jumped through a window and off a balcony, incurring far worse injuries than he got in spaceflight.
Soon after that he was killed while flying a fighter jet. "Conspiracists" believed another jet sideswiped Gagarin's jet to get rid of the scandalous hero. The usual "investigations" conclusively "proved" it was an "accident".
Taxpayers also foot the bill for Google's "private airfield" run by NASA at the former NAS Moffett Field because the beautiful people didn't want to mingle with the unwashed at San Jose Int'l. Oh and only a few years ago Google was caught paying government prices for fuel.
This fits in nicely with endless funding for losers like the F-35, which while looking bad ass and impressing the crowds at Super Bowl 10 second flyovers, became the problem it was intended to supposedly resolve; an overly expensive, complicated, heavy and high maintenance boondoggle., the military equivalent of a Ferrari meant only for Sunday drives in perfect conditions.
It did, however, keep Muslim flying carpets from devastating The Homeland, though.
Kind of want to see MT deep-dive into Yeltsin Era vs. Putin Era now that Putin is the most popular man on the planet. The Yeltsin Era was, in retrospect, a blip.
Taxpayers like housekeepers, janitors, etc. have been building sport palaces for billionaires for decades. The Buffalo Bills got a new stadium thanks to their mutant governor. I spend winters in San Diego and was so proud of the citizens when they voted down a new stadium TWICE, telling the Chargers to go shit in their hat. When given a choice, taxpayers almost always say no to billionaires. The federal govt. gives us no choices. "There is no freedom without choice."
Progressive elites are demanding that those same housekeepers, janitors, etc., pay off their student loans for them. Those critical studies degrees aren't cheap.
"Let them eat cake."
Well, at least there'd be cake. I like cake. Way better than pie, IMO.
pie a la mode is king of desserts you heathen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0bvuOEfHRU
As a fatter, paler person than gaffigan I supercede his trash takes
Blasphemer!
"Progressive elites" don´t have student loans! If they did, they would not be elites as elites don´t need no stinkin loans! And anyway, reducing the effects of loan burdens on the upcoming generation ultimately benefits ALL of America, while moon shots benefit nobody.
Government-funded Space Travel could benefit everybody if our Dear Leaders weren't busy Privatizing it to Hell and back.
But, yes - given the choice between forgiving privatized student loans and Billionaire Moon Shots, I'll vote for the former.
Sorry, Delia. Gotta think govt funded space travel benefits no one when deserving people need education and welfare rather than a man on the moon. We been there done that and have a few rocks for the effort and proof of some mathematical theories.
Funny you should bring that up, b/c I just finished writing a list of 15 things "Government-Funded Space Travel" has given us - https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-great-billionaire-space-caper/comment/6052848? .
I´d be curiuos to hear just how Space Travel could benefit everybody!
● Do you wear glasses that don't scratch as badly as they used to?
● Have insoles that keep your feet from getting tired as quickly as they used to?
● Use or know somebody who uses an insulin pump?
● Have a cameraphone?
● Use cordless tools?
● Notice you don't have to change your tires as often?
● Have a water filter attached to your tap or to a pitcher?
● Use a GPS?
● Have a memory foam mattress or chair?
● Have smoke detectors in your home?
● Drive on roads that aren't as slippery when wet as they used to be?
● Use wireless headphones or earbuds?
● Use a laptop?
● Use a mouse with your laptop?
● Have LED backlight on your laptop, LED lights in your home, or a LED digital television?
That's only some of the things which you use every day you wouldn't have had without space travel. There's also the potential of more natural resources out in space that we can use, and ease the overpopulation here on Earth....
Here's a list of 30 things Space Travel has given us: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/07/08/space-race-inventions-we-use-every-day-were-created-for-space-exploration/39580591/
OMG - such a bogus list. This was obviously put together by a NASA PR expert. There are glaring lies! I do not have time to go through each item so I´ll just start with "insulin pump". Real story: "The first insulin pump was the size of a microwave oven.
As early as 1963, Dr. Arnold Kadish developed an insulin pump that was portable in a backpack and was roughly the size of today's microwave oven. With the help of this system, better blood sugar levels could be achieved compared to conventional insulin therapy. However, this monster of a pump was anything but suitable for everyday use. Also the risk of infections was quite high due to the venous access. Nevertheless, the system of Dr. Kadish was the pilot system for what we have today. Then there is "computer mouse"!!! Weren´t you even a bit suspicious? Well, guess what, it was the result of a COMPUTER Technology research group! Duuu. Look up Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute. Next time do a little thinking and research before just blithely finding some junk on the internet that back up your position!
At least Federal Student Loan Forgiveness would lift countless college students out of privatized debt slavery courtesy of our current President and PUNISH Bankster Usurers (an Act in Grace in its own right), unlike this plan with just gives Musk's and Bezos's erections a shot of Federal Viagra.
Stop deflecting and defending Billionaire sociopaths who refuse to pay their lowest employees, the ones you PRETEND to be sympathetic to(!), a living wage....
How in hell is it even considered that people who choose not to attend University get the "privilege" of paying for those who do? Time to expose these attacks on working people by elite over educated white collar losers. Might consider a "TAX STRIKE." After all they can't lock up millions of working people for NOT paying their taxes. Just file on time and don't include a check and request an extension to pay. That might get their attention and is NOT illegal.
Class bias is not the point; forgiving debt is the point. Education to whatever degree should be freely provided, just as it was for decades before the neoliberal revolution.
There were many colleges that offered free or low cost educations to qualified candidates. CCNY, Brooklyn College and others that is true. Private and Ivy League institutions were always pay as you go schools.
Studies seem to indicate that most all school debt is held by the upper 20 percent of household wage earners and their families. At the lower end of the continuum there is relatively little outstanding debt. I paid over the years for my wife's and two children's college with loans which I repaid with interest. Forgiving this type of debt appears to be a political play to "get votes" not an economically driven policy predicated on what is good for America. Make them interest free and stop the collection system that is currently chasing people. But forgiving the entire loan appears pretty unfair (pay your fair share mantra is used against wealthy people) to very large segments of the population. What is the upside -- graduates have more disposable income for vacations, cars and just living well? Doubt very much if people are becoming homeless or bankrupted by student loan repayments since there are many, many options and ways to solve this issue. BYW Joe Biden was one that made a law that a bankruptcy filing could not discharge a student loan whan he was owned an operated by the Banks in Delaware. Suddenly a 180 degree change in his prior position. Politics trumps everything.
I went back to university for a Master's degree and took out loans, not for tuition, but for living expenses. Afterwards, I was able to pay it back because I really did get a job sufficent.
However, that is not the point. You show the dominant view that all debts are sacred and all debts must be paid. That belief drives the modern economic system; however, it is neither sacred nor useful. Student loans are not forgivable in bankruptcy court, so they exist zombie-like for the life of the borrower, no matter the quality of that life. So, interest free loans and bankruptcy protection would really help.
Over millennia, it has been socially, economically, and politically convenient to forgive all personal debts and allow for a 'restart'. In Biblical times, this was the Jubilee, formulated in Jesus' Lord's Prayer, "...forgive us our debts as we forgive the debts of others..." Note that this was mistranslated on purpose by the English to "forgive us our trespasses..."
There is no reason other than inertia to build an economy on debt investment, no reason other than habit, to tie debt investment to interest. What debt investment interest accomplishes is the creation of a rentier class where instead of land rent, there is people rent.
What you state is a charitable POV. Economic systems are based on trial and error over thousands of years. The idea of debt and repayment is one of the main pillars of our economic system. "Loaned" money can be utilized for many things such as starting a business, moving to a better location, paying for personal education, and on and on it goes. The importance of repayment is a serious thing so that lending money does not become a hit or miss proposition and the assurance of repayment then fosters the confidence for others to lend funds that in turn enrich the economy. Debt is in fact an investment in the future and the repayment reassures lenders continue to lend with confidence. If all lending stopped or was truncated because repayment became a matter of chance our system would collapse as it almost did during the Great Depression. As Milton Friedman said ALL debts are paid one way or another. Either by the debtor or by the lender. You seem to believe that the forgiveness makes the debt disappear. It only transfers that obligation back to the lender. When the gov't or banks are the lender as with student loans ALL the taxpayers then discharge the debt by forgiving it. Like many people you appear to believe that the creation of money without producing something of value somehow is a benign activity.
Current inflation in some ways is a hidden repayment system. The more money you pour into the economy without an equal increase in production the less that money is worth. Forgiveness of personal debt is a nobel thing but on a super scale by a gov't it becomes an economic drag on the robustness of that economy. Like subsidizing non-producers is a charitable thing to do until they out number the producers then it wrecks any balance and returns us to the survival of the fittest economic state. As a third party forgiving debt might make you feel better but it actually injures the lender and in the end the entire citizenry who depend on a balanced economic system. It is not habit that creates interest on debt but. a premium for risk assessment that the debt will be repaid.
Uh - no, not any more, they don't! I went to a four-year college on scholarship for a year until they doubled their tuition and my scholarship didn't match it, so I enrolled in a community college so I could at least get an AA in my major. In the 1970s it was tuition-free (a trivial processing charge aside - $12 at the time, which even I could afford), but when I moved to NYC and tried in the mid-Eighties to continue my education, the community college there charged $100/credit! From what my brother who still lives there tells me, community college is less but still out of reach for working-class people who want to send their children there - $550/semester if you're taking 12 units.
That's FAR from the "free or low-cost education" you're insisting still exists - maybe you should check YOUR facts?
My first sentence was "There WERE". I was speaking of City colleges in the 50's, 60's and 70's as an example. If $550/a semester is out of reach my guess is food might be in short supply too. No society can pay for everything individuals want or even need.
Higher Education (beyond H.S.) was always considered a great thing if you could some how afford it. Now it is a NECESSITY in some peoples eyes. Might be but supplying ALL necessities is a decision that is societies not some small group of arbitrators of morality. Voters are the ones who should decide what and who gets the largess or charity of the individuals paying for the privilege of assisting others in having a good life. Higher education might not be first on their list given the many.many other problems facing people trying to survive day to day to get shelter and a decent meal. I realize that "investing" in society by assuring a higher education is a good thing. Problem is today's graduates don't seem to offer much return for that investment. Just conversing with some is a joy while others are as clueless as they are assured in their fact-less assertions. People can and do differ on the distribution of resources and what is necessary and what is not so necessary.
I was thinking more along the lines of, oh, NOT paying the banksters back and forcing THEM to eat the cost of the student loans. It's not like they haven't already gotten $700 BILLION dollars from us with no strings attached, is it?
Let them beg for a change....
Not sure the banksters created this monster. Before gov't got involved Americans either went to college and found the means or worked to save and attend at a later time. The G.I. Bill upended the previous model for financing a University education. Later the idea of government sponsored loans "for education" became all the rage. The idea of an advanced education for everyone was never a proven concept but an assumption by those with a degree that this would be a good one size fits all idea. Are we really a better society after all this "education" of the masses? Maybe yes or maybe no. Have any definitive studies been done to prove the point that universal education after H.S. actually adds to societies vitality? Given that this was an educated guess by the very people who stand to make fortunes from that assumption I might. need a pause to take a second look at that assumption. The very vital individuals who keep our society running smoothly at the ground level do a fine job without knowing the plays of Shakespeare or the theories of CRT. It is obvious that graduates from the STEM courses do add great value to American society. Having a percentage of University educated people is necessary to move forward and for the innovations they often bring to any society. Is it necessary for every mediocre IQ dolt and uninterested dilettante to be financed by the public to attend University is a much harder case to make.
The administrators and professors of those institutions have every reason to push this concept of everyone getting a college education. Jobs and ever growing salaries seems to be the result of these policies and programs for those within the academic world. A universally educated and a critical thinking society does not seem the result of these idea. Just talk to any of the hot house orchids bing issued from these over priced sausage factories and you would marvel at their lack of an organized though process and nonexistante critical thinking skills. People have different skills, abilities and interests that cannot be addressed by a one size fits all college education.
About your point whether advanced education benefits society or not, evidence from California's decades of essentially free college, a program that I took advantage of, was clearly shown by the technical revolution when California had the educated workforce ready to step up to the moment. If you have not noticed, California became the powerhouse economy of the nation and I claim this was because of its investment in public education.
So why has it become a sinkhole of drug addicted, homelessness and general chaotic social interactions. A "have and have not" divided society where walls and security is necessary just to live without fear. Huge chunks of educated people are moving (fleeing) from this paradise of educated and informed people.
If the banksters weren't responsible, why would it be nearly impossible in America to get a job you can live on without a college degree? One reason truckers are so up in arms these days is that trucking is pretty much the only industry where a person can earn a living without having gone to college, and high fuel prices combined with the push for "driverless vehicles" is taking that away from them. (Another reason is that every truck driver I've ever met, including my youngest brother, only listens to Christian Right Wing Hate Radio and watches Fox News, but that's a chicken-and-egg argument for another day.) With unions so weak they could drowned in Grover Norquist's bathtub, there's no place for anybody who doesn't want to ask if you want fries with that to make a living.
Your response sounds to me suspiciously like Common Core, a heavy-STEM/no-humanities educational process beloved of Bill Gates, a man with nothing but contempt for the humanities himself. (I'd call him a "Borg", but I don't want to insult my avatar who used to be one.) What you call "hothouse orchids" are people who are taught the critical thinking skills you claim don't exist in college unless you're a STEM student (full disclosure - my major was in Communications, and my minor was in Psychology) - to me, STEM graduates' lack the critical thinking to see any problems that can't be fixed with their Techno-Libertarian worldview. (I don't call it a "philosophy" because Philosophy suggests the thoughtfulness that comes from the "hothouse orchid" education you sneer at.)
To me, nothing speaks more of the failings of STEM than what the Gates Foundation sees as solutions:
● Yes, they helped pay for COVID-19 vaccine development (as did the U.S. Government), but demanded it all be patented by the Pharmaceutical Corporations so they (including Gates, whose portfolio certainly includes those same corporations!) can profit off a global pandemic;
● Yes, they give lip service to concerns about climate change, but have over $1 Billion invested in fossil fuels;
● Yes, they say they want to feed the world, but it's all via Genetically-Engineered (and thus patented by Monsanto, Dupoint and Bayer) crops that farmers go destitute to purchase more of every year since they're not allowed by law or by GE to reuse the seeds.
All of the Gates Foundation's solutions are profit-based (from a "charitable organization" that's tax-exempt) and short-term (especially in their love of GE crops). THAT is what you get when you don't have the "hothouse orchids" you have so much contempt for around to demand accountability....
Might try getting out a bit more. I know scores of individuals who make a great living without any degree or even attendance in a college. Most all electricians, plumbers and good carpenters do pretty well. Many small and medium sized businesses are owned and run by individuals with some college but not necessarily graduates. the trucking industry is thousands upon thousands of drivers short and they are paying great salaries and bonuses to anyone with a CDC license. In Florida and Az commercial and home air conditioner installers and repair people make great salaries and many own their own businesses. The individuals with degrees are often employed in cubbyhole jobs paying little and boring them to death. Not true across the board true but enough that making a decent living does not require a 4 year degree. Try checking out the cost per hour for a good BMW mechanic and you might want to be retrained and open your own shop.
Janitors and House keepers are not tax payers. They get subsidy from the IRS provided for by the other people paying taxes. Only about 15% of the total population are paying taxes because leas than HALF of the population works:
60% of Households Now Receive More in Subsidized Income Than they Pay in Taxes
https://taxfoundation.org/60-percent-households-now-receive-more-transfer-income-they-pay-taxes/ 2012 (much worse now)
Remember Mitt's 47%? Obama made the US 14% poorer.
Actually, the poorest worker in the country pays a higher percentage of their income, just in FICA than most business and fat cats. And, Yes Virginia, the employer part of FICA is part of your income. Now add sales tax and city and state and fee's and and you'll see that the figures don't lie but the liar's use the figures.
That is a LIE. The poorest worker with the greatest amount of children get the most reimbursement.. Their TAX CREDITS pay for what ever miniscule amount they contributed to FICA. Aug 18, 2021More than100 million U.S. households, or 61% of all taxpayers, paid no federal income taxes last year,
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/18/61percent-of-americans-paid-no-federal-income-taxes-in-2020-tax-policy-center-says.html
The top 20 % pay 87% of the Taxes.
In the US:
Asia/India average Household Income $80,000 - $120,000
White average Household Income $71,922 to $76,057
Hispanic average Household Income $52,382 to $56,113 Average has 2.6 Children
Black average Household Income $42,447 to $46,073
You will pay $4,480.50 in Federal Tax on a $52,000.00 salary in 2022. You will pay $2,443.40 in South Carolina State tax
us.icalculator.info/salary-illustration/52000.html
Lets say $7,000 - that is single no deductions.
Child Credits $3,000 a year $300 month = $3,600
Total $6,600 in Child Credits X 2.6 Children per ( = $17,160 average for bottom 3 Quintiles
Plus they hey are eligible for Earned Income credits average $2,500 =
Total = $19,660. CTRDITS. (doesn't include Tax Deductible for DEPENDENTS.)
The IRS is just a redistribution agency.
The simple fact is that the lowest classes don't pay "Federal" taxes because they don't make enough money. The well off and the larger corporations don't pay much or any taxes because they own the government and their lobbies literally write the law's that make it possible. Hate the working poor if you want but it's the Rich robbing you blind.
One trick the super-rich have got very good at is hiding behind the moderately wealthy, who really do pay a lot in tax.
People like Postipressionist have completely fallen for that ruse, and think that if people making $100k/year pay their fair share in tax (and then some), then it must therefore follow that billionaires are also paying their fair share.
In reality, the moderately wealthy are effectively subsidizing both the poor AND the extremely wealthy, who pay little to no tax.
Do you have info to back this up? Link Please. Give me some numbers, not Just your opinion. We paid a lot of taxes before we retired. Who is RUSING us. It seems to me that if 60% get more back than they paid, we imported more poverty that we could pay for. Wages are considered according to availability of LABOR.
Labor Unions that were busted by CHEAP immigrant labor.
Construction in Los Angeles has shifted from a heavily unionized labor force that was two-thirds white to a largely non-union one that is 70% Latino and heavily immigrant. American construction workers today make $5 an hour less than they did 40 years ago after adjusting for inflation. (2014 stats)
https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-construction-trump/
Between 2000, - 2014 immigrants accounted for about 70% of the net job growth.
total change in employment was about 8.8 million. Of that, the number of
foreign-born workers grew about 6.2 million and for
native-born, the number was 2.6 million.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/dec/02/peter-morici/economist-immigrants-have-taken-all-new-jobs-creat/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-record-on-outsourcing-draws-criticism-from-the-left/2012/07/09/gJQAljJCZW_story.html
BINGO! Especially the ruse part.
Redistribution? To do that the IRS would have to take on the extremely complex tax returns produced for the 1% by the income protection army of lawyers that work solely for that 1%. By contrast, Joe Average turns in a very simple tax return that the IRS can quickly investigate, and does. If there is any redistribution going on, it is indirect, by forcing the 1% to fund the lawyers who feed off of them thanks to complex income tax law.
You're still missing SALT and sales taxes, which can't be offset by federal credits.
In terms of percentiles, the bottom 50% and the top 1% pay fuck all in taxes. That's true of both personal and corporate tax. Everybody in between (above the bottom 50% but below the top 1%) is who pays the bills.
The latest government data show that in 2018, the top 1% of income earners—those who earned more than $540,000—earned 21% of all U.S. income while paying 40% of all federal income taxes.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-WHB-4875
I was rounding to the nearest percent.
Now do that same analysis for those who earned $54,000,000 per year or more.
$540k/year is rich enough to pay a shitload of tax, but not rich enough to weasel back out of it again.
Go get a job at minimum wage, rent an apartment for 40% of your income, eat fast food and junk food, then tell me how well off the poor are.
Always had 2 jobs.
Among those paid by the hour, 247,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 865,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum.
Median weekly earnings of the nation's 116.3 million full- time wage and salary workers were $1,010 in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Average Wages in United States increased to 27.06 USD/Hour (4329.6 USD/Month) in March 2022.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf
Sep 12, 2017The Census Bureau reported on Tuesday that the median household income was $59,000 in 2016,
In 2019, the average household income was as high as $69,560 and would have likely kept growing if not for the COVID-19 Pandemic. The median US income in 2020 was $67,521,
Median household income was $67,521 in 2020 = UP $9,904 in 4 years.
https://www.census.gov/libr...
Wage is contingent on Supply/Demand. Biden Median household income FALLS to $67,463 in 2021 year and will continue to fall through the millions more border trespassers competing for jobs.
https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/
First of all janitors and housekeepers, assuming employers do their job right, pay social Security taxes known as payroll deductions or FICA.
Secondly, who gives a flip about housekeepers when billionaires who inherited their fortunes and live luxuriously on trust funds pay none.
Billionaires like Bezos and Musk pay a max of $8853.60 on a billion. same as someone making #142,800.
And leading defense contractors make billions.
Only 15% pay taxes?? i think not, but so what? There is no medical care for them, no advanced education, no hearing or dental or optical available to them but we spend billions on war products instead of care for those in need, and to say they are all on welfare is an out and out lie.
Why are you angry at the poor and defensive for the well to do?
I've listened to that bullshit about how why should i pay for someone else's insurance when i have to pay for my own a thousand stupid selfish times.
Billionaire Trump bragged about how smart he was to pay only $750 in taxes one year, yet you worry about a housekeeper not paying enough.
Postipressionist thinks all the parasites are at the bottom of the pyramid, and there are none at the top.
BINGO! But the indoctrination by the best in the mind control business is very effective.
Don’t forget the well connected Hunters out there;)
I despise this kind of bullshit class analysis. The poor pay more in terms of their lives than the wealthy ever do. You must know that everyone pays payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, property taxes (even for renters) and so on.
The poor GET taxes they don't pay them. Less than 1/2 of the US population is working:
Remember Mitt's 46%?..... Obama made it 60% of Households (paying taxes) Now Receive More in Subsidized Income Than they Pay in Taxes
https://taxfoundation.org/60-percent-households-now-receive-more-transfer-income-they-pay-taxes/ 2012
Latino Households with 2.6 children $54,000 income average pays Federal & State income taxes of $9,608.
us.icalculator.info/salary-illustration/52000.html
$2,000 tax credits yearly
$3,600 ($300 a month) Total $3,600
$3,600 X 2.6 = $9,360
ADD Earned Income average $2,500 (only for the poor)
ADD standard dependent deduction?
Total $11,860.
Add up how much how much
https://us.icalculator.info/salary-illustration/54000.html
60% of the people who are working are getting back more. People on Welfare don't work too much. The top 20 % (quintile) pay 87% of the Taxes. The top 30% pay all the taxes which means only 15% of the population is paying for the other 85% The 4th quintile pays for it's self only and single has no deductions.
That means only about 25% of the population is actually paying "income taxes".
Do you really think the CINSUMPTION tax pays for $12,600 cost for one kid for a 1 year of Public School? $32,760 for a family with 2.6 kids.
Now look at the border. 2,000,000 last year. Biden plans on over 150,000 a month (add 1,500 a day Unapprehended walk overs.)
So not only will the taxpayer be funding Jeff's hobby but whatever he finds out there he gets to exploit and keep for his own profit. Congress should pass a law that ALL funding to NASA must be separate from the Federal budges and be voted on as a single budget item. ALL Congress persons must go on the record with their vote.
These newly minted super rich are as bad as the "Robber Barons" of old. They just cloak their greed in faux public works programs. At least the old Robber Barons created railroads that in the end were of useful to the public and created new wealth for America. Most of the citizens of the U. S. won't be riding rockets anytime soon. Please vote these morons out of office ASAP!
Does the funding include a staff of biologists to form a committee to decide whether an astronaut candidate is a woman? Can biologists also determine if a person is OF COLOR or not? How is this decided? Does each candidate get assigned a hex code (RGB value). Astronauts must be at least #b5651d? How else can they comply with this (obviously unconstitutional but who cares about that) law?
Today we all know sex and race are social constructs. Therefore, we know that Stacey Abrams is actually a white man, as that's the only way she could have gotten as far as she has. In fact, *any* person, black or white, man or woman or non-binary, who achieves anything, is actually a white man. Therefore, that person, whoever he/she/they appear to be, has no right to be where he/she/they is, and must be ousted posthaste.
Faster and faster these rotations out of power must occur, the faster the better, so we become dizzy and completely freaked out. As Bill Clinton (always has) said, "Change is good!" Don't worry, the adults are in the room, somewhere... We will soon beg them to save us from ourselves, just in the nick of time!
(I've been working hard at woke logic -- really I have -- but, hmmm, it appears to be backfiring ...)
IDK if Abrams is actually a white man, or not. But, she looks like she ate a couple of them.
Thanks for the humor, sitting in the Miami Hood, I needed it.
I think, "Don't ask. Don't tell" was a good policy as most people aren't interested in what you do with your sex organ..
They may not be interested, but if one is not permitted to be open about it -- and if the military is not prepared to deal with illegal consequences, e.g. assault and battery, following from it -- then, yes, it's a problem. One's freedom of expression is being illegitimately curtailed.
They will be prosecuted the same. What happened in the past? "Assault and battery" has no color or gender. "Pentagon has spent nearly $8 million to treat more than 1,500 transgender troops since 2016, including 161 surgical procedures." This is 6 years later. THAT is elective surgery. The government doesn't pay for elective surgery. If I join can I get a freed BOOB JOB to make me feel MORE Feminine? The answer is NO! That's "INEQUITY"!
Those are all, IMO, reasonable complaints, but they don't negate the fact that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is suppression of free expression:
Wikipedia: "The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service."
Declaring oneself as gay (as it could not be determined medically) during that time resulted in dismissal from the military -- and thus was unconstitutional government punishment based on speech. This fact is independent of any real or imagined issues with gays in the military.
That was between 2016 - 2017. Trump stopped "Gender Questionable People" from entering military service which saves money, and assault and battery, in the long run.
@ Pstimp
Just WTF do you think the fools that conceived this "good policy" were interested in?
EA
I'd say you nailed it! :D
Abrams is too fat to be sent to the moon. NASA would need to develop a heavier load lift rocket to get her fat bottom into orbit.
Democrats simply go back to their original criteria: the one drop rule.
is 0.001% enough? Because I'd love to see Liz Warren shot into outer space.
Isn’t there enough junk up there??
Don't harsh my fantasy buzz
Walter Cronkite in black and white: "It turns out the first woman on the moon," takes off his glasses for effect, "has a penis."
"And that's the way it is..."
Good point. The Trans Community should protest.
Speaking of tax payer funded grifters;Have you heard of GATE. The newest NGO affiliated “with strategic partners at the global level to provide knowledge, resources and access to UN mechanisms and bodies” 😏https://gate.ngo/
Agreed on the corporate welfare aspects here. We should award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder and move on, feelings be damned.
But I disagree heartily with your rejection of NASA's privatization of much of its work to develop rockets. Contractors did all the work for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, as well as Space Lab and the Shuttle. Look at the old videos of crews being loaded onto the rockets - technicians are wearing garb adorned with their companies' logos. Our private contractors allowed us to go to the Moon, while the Soviet Union never made it.
What's different is that NASA is setting goals and asking industry to come up with proposals to bid, just as defense contractors do. Competition results in better products for NASA. Prime example: SpaceX is running circles around Boeing with its Dragon crew capsule, which just delivered the first all-commercial crew to ISS, while Boeing's Starliner is still mired in technical difficulties and definitely not anywhere near ready for launch. What's the difference? I think it's because SpaceX has a fixed rate contract, while Boeing is paid cost-plus - no incentive for Boeing to control costs and just get it done!
Competition and private industry are essential to progress in space. Don't poo-poo them; harness them and get rid of crony capitalism.
We should perhaps also recall the old John Glenn quote here:
“I guess the question I'm asked the most often is: "When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”
But, I think Jeff Bezos has found a way around this problem: keep bribing politicians until they create a budget custom designed for your company's project. There's no need for a low bid. There isn't any bidding at all.
The sheer amount of monopolization is going to destroy what little competition is left and make it so that upstart companies with good ideas go nowhere and get bought out.
I don't have a problem at all with public/private either, and agree with you in objecting to the losing bid muscling in through politicians to get a contract when they blew the bid.
Well said!
"Our private contractors allowed us to go to the Moon, while the Soviet Union never made it."
...aaand? I'm sure the Soviet Union is very sad about this. Oh wait, it doesn't exist as a geopolitical entity any more. I'm learning a lesson here -- going to the fucking moon is a prerequisite for durability as a geopolitical entity, apparently.
Mobutu, a king: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27244/brief-history-congolese-space-program
It's not about "durability as a geopolitical entity" but our human need to explore, and. yes, the possibility of commercial gain, too.
Queen Isabella supposedly pawned her jewels to pay for Columbus' trip. There is still a monarchy in Spain, but that didn't depend on underwriting Columbus. It depended on the open-mindedness to want to expand horizons (and perhaps also to make a profit). And that probably also meant Spain would get colonies if Columbus were successful, which he was. But I would never doubt the need to explore was part of the equation.
I wonder whether the "need to explore" -- and the lack of new physical topographies in which to do it (the moon is a rock in space) -- is one of the major crazifying praxes in modern society. It's why people get weird on the internet.
The goal was to get a cheaper source of spices, not colonies per se.
The spice must flow.
That’s what Cobra Commander taught me in 5th grade, in the GI Joe episode where he carved his face in the moon with a laser!
You gotta read Jack Vance's THE FACE (1979). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40871.The_Face
I think we could all learn lessons from Cobra Commander. He periodically reinvented himself, as a good capitalist should.
At some point in the mid-1980s, Flint Dille ate a lot of psychedelic drugs and the world was never the same afterwards.
The only reason you think as you do is your belief in the neoliberal world order. Other ideological systems work quite well or better. The USSR beat the Americans to space in spite of enormous economical, political, and military challenges.
I’d trust Space X’s quality control as much as NASA’s for it’s contractors-the Challenger o ring was screwed up by Morton Thiokol…….
After the Challenger disaster, I participated in the "Name The New Space Shuttle" contest at my elementary school. My nomination was "Inferno."
I got kicked out of class.
My 7th grade math teacher was a crazy old bat, but she had a certificate on the wall for being one of 50 finalists in the state or something for the Challenger Teacher in Space, and one day I got pissed off and said “Too bad you didn’t get picked!!!”
There is NO reason to return to the moon. What a waste. Perhaps we should re-stage Columbus’s trip across the Atlantic? A “Lewis and Clark” RV trip to the coast? And highlighting the useful trip with woke histrionics!!
We re-stage Columbus hundreds of times a day, only with modern ships that carry valuable cargoes. The Moon could have valuable resources of its own, serve as a waystation to Mars, or provide a base to exploit natural resources on asteroids.
The moon is a large useless rock. With acne.
if we are ever going to mine asteroids we need a base outside the bottom of earth's gravity well. The moon is a great starting point.
You are truly an optimist. Mine asteroids. I’m just hoping not to be incinerated in a nuclear exchange in the next few weeks
Ok-honest question-do asteroids-or the moon-have viable mineral deposits worth the expense of mining?
Great question. I am not sure but I doubt there are any minerals worth enough to overcome the extraordinary fixed costs of celestial mining
Did you ever read/hear the Dave McGowan "Wagging the Moondoggie"? He had some interesting data on his website (now gone since he died), but apparently there are interviews with him where he goes over data from the US space voyages that doesn't make sense.
http://whale.to/c/Dave%20McGowan%20-%20Wagging%20The%20Moon%20Doggie.pdf
We still don't know how all the medieval/rennaissance stained glass was made, or roman concrete, to name two well known examples
of "losing" tech
Better be careful. The Moon may become to Americans in the 21st century what Siberia became to the Soviets in the 20th.
That Matt Taibbi was able to make that “Bezos/Seminal” reference without additional remark or comment is why I read the man. He trusts us.
And let’s not forget how much the public space dollars will inflate Bezos’ imagined intellectual prowess. NYT comments routinely describe him as a “genius”, and a “towering intellect”.
I imagine Einstein looking down from heaven muttering “Damn that Bezos!! If I’d only been able to figure out ‘Free Shipping!!’”
"We demand more diverse oppressors!"
Response: "Why do we need to have oppressors in the first place?"
Counter: "Why do you hate diversity?"
Yup. To quote Kurt Cobain, "I miss the comfort in being sad."
Bezos deserves to be pilloried and Musk has an ego the size of his new rocket. But Elon has also revolutionized heavy lift. Cost per kilo lifted to LEO has never been cheaper than what Falcon 9 can do it for. His contracts with NASA are for performance, not cost plus like all aerospace contracts have been since before Apollo. Contrast Falcon 9, and now Starship, with the cost plus NASA SLS program. 10s of billions spent for a rocket that is years behind schedule and still throws away all of its component parts as it flies as if the reusability revolution hadn't come to pass years ago.
There is a reason why Musk's entrant for a moon landing system was chosen. He has a history of delivering what's promised. It's because of Musk we can tell the Russians to go fuck themselves and stop buying rides on Soyuz to the ISS.
Yet the Soyuz craft worked. Plus it gave the US a reason to cooperate with the Russians. Had NATO done similar the world would be a safer place.
Troll away my friend. Russia had us over a barrel and over-charged us like crazy for rides to ISS. Not to mention, one of the first things they did is threaten to crash the ISS because the US didn't support Russia pulverizing women and children.
Having worked on US contracts to build alternative space delivery vehicles, whatever the Russians were charging was surely less than the money pissed away at home. Plus, they probably inspired Musk in the first place.
They have never had a reusable space craft. So they didn't inspire shit.
One would need to ask Musk or any member of his SpaceX team for particulars in this specific case. But speaking in general as an engineer, anyone getting something to work well is an inspiration to you.
You made the assertion. Point us to the reusable space craft that could have potentially inspired Elon Musk. Or where he's said he was inspired by a Russian concept of a reusable space craft.
Falcon 9 is not heavy-lift by any traditional definition. Performance-wise, the Falcon 9 is basically a Delta III class system so the low side of medium-lift is a more accurate description. Government launch production contracts are not cost-plus and have not been cost-plus since the days of Titan IV in which the launch processing elements of the program were allowed to function on a cost-plus basis. All recent Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Atlas and Vulcan awards are based on fixed-price arrangements. Your points about SLS are well taken and the reasons why the situation doesn't compute is because the SLS program exists to preserve selected critical skills and to keep certain corporate constituencies happy. That said, your comparison of the contracting basis for SLS (a development program) to Falcon (a mature production program) is not appropriate.
To make this fully perfect, the first black woman on the moon should be bi-sexual, left-handed, and a single mother or the whole thing isn't worth it.
She must also have a glass eye, a peg leg and scurvy.
A three headed lesbian. Right the wrongs.
I’m so done with all these “firsts” and want no “ seconds.” This is all so ridiculously absurd, I’m risking an inappropriate joke…..I think the first woman on the moon must named Alice, she’s been waiting decades.
Bang! Zoom! To the moon Alice, to the moon.
Thank you! Was not sure all the youngsters would get it! 🌝🌝🌝🌝
Setting aside the fundamental wrongness of (1) billionaires and (2) the rush to privatize and exploit everything that used to give Americans a sense of common cause, Bezos is the biggest jerk in this mess. Elon Musk may be a reprehensible human being, but what he's done for both the auto industry and the space launch industry is pretty good by 21st century standards. GM buried the EV1 to protect entrenched interests; Tesla eventually forced the whole auto industry to face the future. There are a lot of electric cars on the market now. Similarly, Lockheed and Boeing and Northrup Grumman were content to charge NASA and private companies very high fees for single-use launch vehicles for decades, until SpaceX proved it could be done an order of magnitude cheaper. And that is a good thing. Launch is a dominant upfront cost in robotic planetary missions. Right now, cheaper launch means more NASA science -- and that's a win for the public if you think understanding the Earth's climate, the solar system, and the universe is worthwhile.
(Funny side note: When you do rough cost estimates for science flight missions, the scientists usually work first and primarily with a dollar- and mass-cap for the payload and ignore launch costs entirely. The fights that go on about which spectrometer will fly are a real bummer if you actually think about what the rocket costs.)
Anyway: SpaceX won out on the Moon thing because neither NASA nor the private sector competitors can do launch as cheaply or as well. If that decision was upheld, I think the public interest and science would be relatively well served. I can ignore the stupid penis contest aspects of the thing if good rockets are being built and science and exploration are actually happening. This has always been the nature of spaceflight. It's icky and ridiculous, but 12 people walking on the moon was GRAND. Every time pictures of a new planetary surface come back, it is AMAZING. So, yeah. Pick a winner. Pay them out of NASA's feeble budget, and let's get on with things. And don't let Bezos whine and buy his way to a second place win at everyone's expense. That's super gross.
Your statement about SpaceX reducing the cost of space launch by an order of magnitude isn't true.
https://potomacofficersclub.com/news/us-space-force-awards-ula-spacex-contracts-for-basic-launch-services/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition
I was making an off-the-cuff statement based on discussions leading into white papers for the planetary science decadal survey. Although I'm totally willing to concede my memory being faulty, your example of two similarly priced contracts to separate launch providers is too narrow a piece of data to contradict my larger point. SpaceX has forced the cost of launch per kilogram down across the industry: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-cost-of-space-flight/
Ok. Here's another one for you. In 2019 SpaceX was awarded a $297M contract for 2 launches ($148M per) and ULA was awarded a $441M contract for 3 launches ($147M per). Again, no savings. The visual capitalist article is faulty because it attempts to make a grand argument for SpaceX value generation based on pricing for a block-buy of identical launch services (NASA's COTS program) which were not competitively bid and it uses an out-dated $/kg metric that, in the real world, is not a meaningful measure of how launch services are actually procured. You're buying into a lot of publicity and hype that simply isn't true.
https://www.defensedaily.com/air-force-awards-739-million-in-launch-services-to-ula-space-x/space/
I'm not going to have an internet argument with you. My understanding inside my professional sphere is that SpaceX had changed the game quite a lot, consistent with the Wikipedia article I linked. Certainly other launch providers are part of that trend. I'm not an aerospace engineer nor have I dealt directly with the parts of mission proposals that consider cost-of-launch trades. I'm fully willing to concede I may be wrong. Have a nice day!
Same to you, Hanna.
Today is the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's first manned spaceflight.
Afterward, Gagarin let fame go to his (ahem) head. He was banging a nurse in a resort hotel. When his wife barged into the room he jumped through a window and off a balcony, incurring far worse injuries than he got in spaceflight.
Soon after that he was killed while flying a fighter jet. "Conspiracists" believed another jet sideswiped Gagarin's jet to get rid of the scandalous hero. The usual "investigations" conclusively "proved" it was an "accident".
Taxpayers also foot the bill for Google's "private airfield" run by NASA at the former NAS Moffett Field because the beautiful people didn't want to mingle with the unwashed at San Jose Int'l. Oh and only a few years ago Google was caught paying government prices for fuel.
This fits in nicely with endless funding for losers like the F-35, which while looking bad ass and impressing the crowds at Super Bowl 10 second flyovers, became the problem it was intended to supposedly resolve; an overly expensive, complicated, heavy and high maintenance boondoggle., the military equivalent of a Ferrari meant only for Sunday drives in perfect conditions.
It did, however, keep Muslim flying carpets from devastating The Homeland, though.
"the space version of the NIH" LOL--too true.
Big waste of money. Why don’t we explore our oceans, here on Earth. They still still hold great mysteries we don’t know that much about.
Because we need to protect them so let’s go trash another planet….. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Not sure if serious...
I personally blame Putin. It's a very safe thing to do these days. He is personally responsible for wasting US taxpayer money.
These gas prices? Oy!
Kind of want to see MT deep-dive into Yeltsin Era vs. Putin Era now that Putin is the most popular man on the planet. The Yeltsin Era was, in retrospect, a blip.
I think he touched on this in one of his prior articles.
Would be good to cover Putin the killer. He did kill the covid pandemic.