Do you invoice for sales tax?

[Noiz2]

The point of the three-strike law, which I actually agree with, is not that you're inflicting major punishment for a minor crime, it's that the acccused has proven that he is incapable of learning from the punishment he has received from strikes one and two and he needs to be permanently removed from circulation for the protection of those who would otherwise certainly become his future victims. Still committing crimes after two strikes is proof positive that nothing can be done to redeem him and he will continue his criminal behavior. A minor crime today is a signal that he will committ a major crime tomorrow - he just doesn't care about the impact of his actions and is incapable of learning how to live without victimizing others. The only thing that can be done to neutralize him and stop his lifestyle of recurrent victimization is to put him in a cage and never again let him out.

Well I can't agree. And it breaks one of the cornerstones of american law and that is the fairness doctrine. It is unconstitutional to punish someone out of balance with the crime they are convicted of. Repeat minor crimes do not directly connect to bigger crimes. That starts to sound like the old stupid anti marijuana theory that you need to stop it because users would all become heroine addicts, or the theory that is a sister, "if we don't win in Vietnam the rest of the world will fall to communism", we didn't and they didn't. And even if I though three strikes had some merit, in CA the bar was set way too low. You make it third time murder conviction, or third time assault, hey how about third time DUI for lawyers OK maybe you have a point. But any felony??? In the 60's any trace of pot constituted a felony, student sit ins were felony's. There are a LOT of felony's that in other places and other times are not even crimes. And who gets charged with felony's has way too much to do with who you are and who you know. Nixon (all politics to the side) authorized the burglarization of at least two and probably three locations, destroyed evidence, lied under oath, laundered money, payed out bribes, and hired quite a good sized group of folks for illegal activities. Those are all felony's, and not weeny ones either, and the man was never even disbarred.
No three strikes is a suburban scare law passed by the group least likely to be effected and most likely to manipulate it in their favor. It has done nothing but help bankrupt the state (Ironically one of the "solutions" proposed is letting loose ton's of convicted felons!) and swamped the court system (nobody's doing a deal that will give them a strike).

I think if you really believe in three strikes then you need to go all the way and have summary executions. I mean if the point is you need to permanently remove them from society then why spend $60k a year to keep them behind bars? A bullet out side the courtroom is far quicker and cheaper. If you say you need to "neutralize him and stop his lifestyle of recurrent victimization is to put him in a cage and never again let him out." but aren't willing to just off them then I think your full of BS. Then it's all "I need to end their life, but not in a way that doesn't give me moral deniability". You want to end peoples lives then own it. And once you start to look at it, really look at it then the bar for three strikes gets very high and doesn't include stealing candy bars (an actual third strike, he was on parole or something that elevated it up to a felony).

 

[Scott F]

Not at all - the claim had been made that free-market capitalism has produced the best health care system in the world. If that was true, one would expect the USA to have the highest life expectancy on the planet. It doesn't, not by a long shot. The exact position depends on how you break out the political boundaries (ie, is Martinique counted as being in in France or as a separate country, that sort of thing). Looking at political entities, the USA ranks in 30th position. Looking at geographic entities, it's in 45th place, ranking well behind countries with publically funded healthcare systems. Hardly a stunning endorsement of the efficiency of a free-market, laissez-faire capitalism based healthcare system such as has been advocated by the extreme social Darwinists.

Hmmm.....last time I checked, there were plenty of senior citizens enjoying very long, healthy lives here in the United States. Not to be morbid, but generally speaking, most funerals I have attended are people in their 80s and 90s.

So by my account, "30th" or "45th" place ain't that bad. rogar-BigGrin(DBG) But if you think we should be living into our 100's, so be it.

 

[Steve House]

Hmmm.....last time I checked, there were plenty of senior citizens enjoying very long, healthy lives here in the United States. Not to be morbid, but generally speaking, most funerals I have attended are people in their 80s and 90s.

So by my account, "30th" or "45th" place ain't that bad. rogar-BigGrin(DBG) But if you think we should be living into our 100's, so be it.

If it was truely the "best healthcare system in the world" wouldn't you at least expect it to be in the top 10?

 

[Scott F]

Well, 45th place sounds pretty low UNTIL I saw this list (I think one of the lists you are referring to?)

#1 country is Macau with an overall expectancy of 84.379

#45 United States with 78.06

Call me flippant, but I think the difference is negligible.

FYI, going off that list, you Canadians only have us beat by 2.28 years.

LOL, and on an unrelated note for the OP, I also vote to consult with your accountant vs a message board RE: sales tax, as mileage may vary from state to state.

 

[Noiz2]

Deepfocus88,

I agree the life expectancies are not very significant. But I have been going to a lot younger funerals and some of them probably would not be dead in a different system. But it is a complicated issue and it's not really a partisan issue thought the health industry tries to set it up that way. Big med doesn't want any changes and Big Insurance (is there another kind?) doesn't want any changes. The FDA has been running scared since they approved Thalidomide and then got their asses saved by England finding the issues first so the FDA could pull approval before we saw a problem here. But the backlash has been that therapies that are working in other parts of the world are not available in the US. But to make a big change you have to spread the burden and lower the cost and the only way you lower the cost is by limiting liability. You can't have national health and the open ended litigation that is rampant in the US. So the dems will block any limitation on litigation and the repubs. will block any hint of "socialized" medicine. And you and I are stuck with less than great health care (unless you have some serous $$$). I want national health because I think it's better for the country, but it can't happen till you limit liability.
My proposal (which would never fly) is to keep it pretty much as it is now EXCEPT, lawyers get a court set fee (no percentages), and all damages go into a government trust to offset costs to the national health fro related issues. It will never happen because politicians are mostly lawyers and litigation with percentage deals are a HUGE cash cow. For two or three years running the highest paid folks in the US were the lead lawyers on the breast implant suit. A year or two ago they finally finished the the study of the impact of silicone on the body (the toxicity of which was the basis of the class action) and found that silicone in the body is inert and doesn't in fact cause any of the problem it had been blamed for. Unfortunately this was years too late to affect the judgments. Anyway take the BIG profits out of liability and you will find the lawsuits get a lot more reasonable.

 

[MikeyP]

Simply explained....the US counts infant mortality into its expected life span. Most other countries do not. If you removed the tragedy of kids dying at birth (US has one of the lowest rates) we would shoot up dramatically. Now back to your regularly scheduled rants....

 

[grinner]

I guess I could beef up my invoices by charging for tax but I don't elevt to run off my clientele with such shinanigans. They all understand tax is not charged for services.
It's a fine way to weed bad clients out though. I choose to just raise my rates for these folks.
much easier then getting the tax man involved later on.

 

[orangesaybananas]

#1 country is Macau with an overall expectancy of 84.379

#45 United States with 78.06

That's interesting. I wonder what the GDP per capita is of Macau, that hard working, over stressed white collar nation of stressed out wacko's? :grin: Industrialized nations probably have higher stress levels. Stress lowers life expectancy.

 

[Steve House]

I guess I could beef up my invoices by charging for tax but I don't elevt to run off my clientele with such shinanigans. They all understand tax is not charged for services.
It's a fine way to weed bad clients out though. I choose to just raise my rates for these folks.
much easier then getting the tax man involved later on.

It's not a matter of choice - some states require it on services, some don't and you have no (legal) option except to go with whatever the law requires in your jurisdiction. Same here in Canada ... there's a federal Goods & Services sales tax while each province also has its own tax structure with different rules on what is taxable and what isn't.