The Trump Presidency 2.0

What really pisses me off about all these court cases that are destroying college sports is that current system has raised up hundreds of thousands of people, providing them access to education they could not otherwise afford or qualify for. But we somehow hate that because the less than 1% who go pro didn't get a few shekels? What about all these track athletes who are on 5% scholarship who may get their roster spot cut? Which means less in the future have access?

That's my point. That 5% wouldn't even matter if students weren't trying to offset the other shit the college is in deep with. Maybe we just make high school more difficult and two years longer and then cut out the colleges all together.
 
That's my point. That 5% wouldn't even matter if students weren't trying to offset the other shit the college is in deep with. Maybe we just make high school more difficult and two years longer and then cut out the colleges all together.

Or make it that pro athletics don't require any college time and allow high school athletes go straight to the pros. Then offer scholarships to those who want to play in college who likely won't go pro.
 
Ok.

The Laffer curve describes a point at which taxes become so high there is no incentive to work, this was used heavily by Reagan in his trickle down economics policies.

Laffer Curve: History and Critique.

I also have personal skin in this one because I believe I posted somewhere that I chose to not make more money this past year because I was personally disincentivized to by taxes. When you make a certain amount of money, it becomes disadvantageous to make more, if you are W2 and cannot hide it. I personally make enough that at a certain point the money I make isn’t worth my time to pay the taxes on the money I make. I pay 6 figures in income taxes, and making another 100 grand would be easy but it isn’t worth it because I only actually see 40 of it, and my time is worth more than the 40k. Does this make sense? This is a pretty well known phenomenon, and one that many high earners utilize.
I can second your experience. My wife and I are both retired officers and CRNAs so we do well. We have our own LLC and do a lot of long term locum work in New Mexico where it is hard to fully staff anesthesia departments (its a shame because, politics aside, NM is a fantastic state). Anyway, last year we worked our butts off and paid our large quarterly income taxes, FICA taxes etc so we thought we were good. At the end of the year our accountant told us we owed well north of $100,000 in additional income tax. Fortunately we could pay it but this year we have cut way back even though companies are begging us to work. Why put in those extra hours and take more risk for so little return?
 
I can second your experience. My wife and I are both retired officers and CRNAs so we do well. We have our own LLC and do a lot of long term locum work in New Mexico where it is hard to fully staff anesthesia departments (its a shame because, politics aside, NM is a fantastic state). Anyway, last year we worked our butts off and paid our large quarterly income taxes, FICA taxes etc so we thought we were good. At the end of the year our accountant told us we owed well north of $100,000 in additional income tax. Fortunately we could pay it but this year we have cut way back even though companies are begging us to work. Why put in those extra hours and take more risk for so little return?

Yep.
 
Gas market is wild brother.

My story is out there. My plan was to do crna. I shadowed a buddy who was a crna (trivially we worked together at Carolina AirCare, he was a flight RN, I was a flight medic, he was a former 18D, became a crna). I hated it. I knew in a couple hours it wasn't the life for me.

I love --LOVE--what I do, but it sure doesn't rain $.
 
My story is out there. My plan was to do crna. I shadowed a buddy who was a crna (trivially we worked together at Carolina AirCare, he was a flight RN, I was a flight medic, he was a former 18D, became a crna). I hated it. I knew in a couple hours it wasn't the life for me.

I love --LOVE--what I do, but it sure doesn't rain $.
It’s definitely not for everyone. In the end, loving what you do is most important by far.
 
This^

I’ve never loved any job I’ve had as much as being a CRNA, and that includes being a green beret.

So part of my "issue" is my fault: mismatched expectations. By the time I had shadowed I had already intubated probably a couple hundred people, and had performed five surgical airways. I thought that's all it was. When I realized what it actually was, I realized it wasn't my bag.*

But it's true you have to find what you love. That just wasn't it for me. What I do now can be incredibly frustrating, but I really do love it.

* That's not minimizing it, it was again just mismatched expectations.
 
Just wondering. Because I don't trust news, I behind on some things.

Well, we had a task force in the Red Sea shooting down their drones...instead of just bombing them we wasted missiles on shitty drones. Shipping continues to avoid the Suez Canal route and mostly go around the Cape of Good Hope. Which probably drives some inflation.
 
Just caught up on the thread- taxes good, don’t make more money cause you’ll get taxed more, rabbit stupid, CRNA rocks, district judges with more injunctions that aren’t constitutional, with one over international waters. I’m tracking.

Problem with usage is multi-fold.
W. Bush was the first to use it, so did Obama, and Trump, so the illegal to use argument could be weak.
Biden may have used it almost100%, so the argument is did he know what was signed?
Was stuff signed without telling him?
Simple solution, pass a law making autopen signatures illegal on bills, e.o's, pardons, etc.
 
I can't possibly format this message like @Box (cause lazy), but I channeled His Holiness on this one.

I was working out at the gym this morning (legs, obv), and I was about to put more weight on. I thought, "Sheesh, the last set was tough; if I put more weight on, it's gonna tax me even more, but I want these big beefy legs. My dad never had big legs, he just never got to that next level."

A gym employee came over and said, "You know, if you just stayed at that weight, you'll never realize your full potential and that's ok. Grinding it out, never making gains is virtuous. We did the math, and we figured out that the top 10% of lifters here pay 75% of our total revenue, but 90% of the rest of the population doesn't use the gym as much, so we will give them a discount. If you get into that top 10%, we will have to charge you a little more. I'd recommend just staying at this weight, honestly. There's no real incentive to go higher; you'll get charged more, the rest of the population will get jealous and say you used steroids and cheated (even though you're here at 0400 6 days a week), and gym leadership will tell you you're not paying your fair share while simultaneously creating a class of lifting surfs destined to remain at their station... so just accept your position in the lower lifting class and keep paying your dues. Granted, you'll never lift more than your dad or his dad, and you'll never realize the LifeTime™ Athletic Dream- but we are a pretty progressive gym."

Then I put on 315 freedom units for a slick 5 spot (ass to grass, everyone clapped) because I was never meant to stay in the middle class of lifter, that's meant to be a transitory phase. The gym should be giving me every opportunity to rise to that 10% from my lowly beginnings. The guys that started LifeTime™ wrote that down in their founding documents, it turns out, but they recently dealt with 16 years of new management that seemed hell-bent on keeping their members down and stealing their money. They have a new GM now, and everything the guy does (even good ideas that benefit 80% of the gym) seems to make everyone mad for no other reason than they don't like the guy. It's Vegas, he probably does tan too much.

The folks who wanted to stay at their current weights were happy with the discount, and with the money they saved every month, they could invest in some supplements and a trainer, and it turns out a few of them used that investment to lift more, and now they're in the top 10% too. Every time I see one of them get into that top 10%, it makes me happy, and the gym makes way more money like that. I wish more people were like that, but the lifting community is super weird and fractious, and a sect of lifters (all doing some retarded thing called "CrossFit™") insist that the weakest people should pay just as much as the strongest people and that the weak people will actually be disincentivized to get stronger if you give them a discount. That doesn't make any sense to me, but I am positive that LifeTime™ is the best gym in the world, and why wouldn't I want the gym to help me, and why wouldn't I want to help the gym by my own success?

This is solely a story about a workout and not an allegory about taxation under $150k.
 
I can't possibly format this message like @Box (cause lazy), but I channeled His Holiness on this one.

I was working out at the gym this morning (legs, obv), and I was about to put more weight on. I thought, "Sheesh, the last set was tough; if I put more weight on, it's gonna tax me even more, but I want these big beefy legs. My dad never had big legs, he just never got to that next level."

A gym employee came over and said, "You know, if you just stayed at that weight, you'll never realize your full potential and that's ok. Grinding it out, never making gains is virtuous. We did the math, and we figured out that the top 10% of lifters here pay 75% of our total revenue, but 90% of the rest of the population doesn't use the gym as much, so we will give them a discount. If you get into that top 10%, we will have to charge you a little more. I'd recommend just staying at this weight, honestly. There's no real incentive to go higher; you'll get charged more, the rest of the population will get jealous and say you used steroids and cheated (even though you're here at 0400 6 days a week), and gym leadership will tell you you're not paying your fair share while simultaneously creating a class of lifting surfs destined to remain at their station... so just accept your position in the lower lifting class and keep paying your dues. Granted, you'll never lift more than your dad or his dad, and you'll never realize the LifeTime™ Athletic Dream- but we are a pretty progressive gym."

Then I put on 315 freedom units for a slick 5 spot (ass to grass, everyone clapped) because I was never meant to stay in the middle class of lifter, that's meant to be a transitory phase. The gym should be giving me every opportunity to rise to that 10% from my lowly beginnings. The guys that started LifeTime™ wrote that down in their founding documents, it turns out, but they recently dealt with 16 years of new management that seemed hell-bent on keeping their members down and stealing their money. They have a new GM now, and everything the guy does (even good ideas that benefit 80% of the gym) seems to make everyone mad for no other reason than they don't like the guy. It's Vegas, he probably does tan too much.

The folks who wanted to stay at their current weights were happy with the discount, and with the money they saved every month, they could invest in some supplements and a trainer, and it turns out a few of them used that investment to lift more, and now they're in the top 10% too. Every time I see one of them get into that top 10%, it makes me happy, and the gym makes way more money like that. I wish more people were like that, but the lifting community is super weird and fractious, and a sect of lifters (all doing some retarded thing called "CrossFit™") insist that the weakest people should pay just as much as the strongest people and that the weak people will actually be disincentivized to get stronger if you give them a discount. That doesn't make any sense to me, but I am positive that LifeTime™ is the best gym in the world, and why wouldn't I want the gym to help me, and why wouldn't I want to help the gym by my own success?

This is solely a story about a workout and not an allegory about taxation under $150k.

Well done, Aesop.... well done....
 
Back
Top