Saturday, April 20, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots
This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.
After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th.
Then there’s the bad news.
For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment.
Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want—and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus—the kicker—Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?
Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions—or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes. That collective wish list would address most of this nation’s urgent challenges, while making us smarter, safer, healthier, less indebted, and better invested in our long-term future. Here’s how.
What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots
Thursday, April 11, 2013
What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots
This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.
After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th.
Then there’s the bad news.
For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment.
Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want—and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus—the kicker—Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?
Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions—or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes. That collective wish list would address most of this nation’s urgent challenges, while making us smarter, safer, healthier, less indebted, and better invested in our long-term future. Here’s how.
What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots
What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots
This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.
After heroic feats of arithmetic and a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine interpretation of opaque rules and guidelines, millions of Americans will file their taxes by this Monday, April 15th.
Then there’s the bad news.
For anyone who takes a peek at where his or her income tax dollars are going, Tax Day can be maddening. Outsized chunks of our taxes fund the military, rising healthcare costs, and interest on the federal debt. Comparatively tiny amounts go to education, science, alternative energy, and the environment.
Category by category, this is contrary to what Americans want—and what we the people want is pretty clear. Despite near-constant news about how polarized our nation is, a careful look at opinion polls indicates that a strong majority of Americans actually have a coherent to-do list for Washington: we want more jobs, smaller deficits, more education funding, reduced reliance on fossil fuels, higher taxes on the wealthiest, plus—the kicker—Medicare and Social Security benefits preserved. You know, it’s the typical story of wanting to have our cake and gobble it down, too. Right?
Wrong. What’s virtually unacknowledged is that all these things could be done at once. Far from being an impossible set of demands, the collective opinion poll version of the wisdom of the American people is, in fact, a smart set of solutions—or at least it would be, if we had a government capable of following our wishes. That collective wish list would address most of this nation’s urgent challenges, while making us smarter, safer, healthier, less indebted, and better invested in our long-term future. Here’s how.
What Taxes Would Look Like if Normal People Called the Shots
Friday, April 5, 2013
What Does the Worst-case Scenario of a Cyberattack on the United States by Another State or by Terrorists Look Like?
Cyber weapons are different from conventional weapons in that their effects do not directly manifest themselves in the “real world.” There are three broad categories of potential effects of cyberattacks: personal, economic, and physical.
Department od Defense (DOD)
CFR.org
April 5, 2013
The personal effects of a cyberattack are the invasion of privacy, and associated embarrassment or shame, that a person endures when their personal data is improperly accessed, disclosed, or tampered with. While the nation as a whole does not suffer from the event, the affected individual may feel that the harm is devastating. Such losses are real but not quantifiable.
The economic effects of a cyberattack can range widely, from minor acts of fraud, to breaches of corporate computer systems that threaten the company’s survival, to the large costs associated with expensive cybersecurity systems. In economic terms, the worst-case scenario would be a cyberattack that triggers or accelerates a liquidity crisis among systemically important financial institutions, potentially catalyzing a financial crisis like that of 2008. This has not happened yet, and there is no publicly available evidence that it is about to happen, but the possibility cannot be ruled out.
To date, cyberattacks have rarely resulted in physical damage to people or tangible assets. The principal exception was the Stuxnet attack on Iran’s centrifuge program, which destroyed a few thousand centrifuges. There is no question that offensive information operations will be a feature of future major conflicts between major states.
But how bad could the worst case be? Given the extremity of the possibilities, the answers to this question are more likely to come from Hollywood than CFR. Indeed, technology gone wrong has been one of the great themes of science fiction, starting perhaps with Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. For a more recent depiction of a truly worst-case cyberattack, see James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator and its dystopian sequels.
Intellihub.com
What Does the Worst-case Scenario of a Cyberattack on the United States by Another State or by Terrorists Look Like?
Thursday, February 14, 2013
A Look Inside The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
You’re welcome.
SI’s swimsuit issue is a savior for Time, Inc. Broadcast Feb. 12.
I believe it accounts for 10% of Time’s overall revenues, but I was distracted by the video and could be wrong. My apologies in advance to our loyal female readers.
Screenshots…
A Look Inside The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue