Fumesucker
Fumesucker's JournalNew York Times: Can People as Rich as Romney Escape Taxes? They Can
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/business/in-the-superrich-clues-to-romneys-tax-returns-common-sense.html?_r=1&hpEvidently it is.
It so happens that this summer the Internal Revenue Service released data from the 400 individual income tax returns reporting the highest adjusted gross income. This elite ultrarich group earned on average $202 million in 2009, the latest year available. And buried in the data is the startling disclosure that six of the 400 paid no federal income tax.
The I.R.S. has never before disclosed that last fact.
Read the rest of the article at the link..
A man who is terrified of releasing his tax returns publicly is a man vulnerable to blackmail..
Do we really want someone so vulnerable to being blackmailed as POTUS?
Could it be that the Mormon church is running a two tiered tithing system?
One rate for the ordinary 99% Mormons and a much lower rate for the Mormons like Mitt who are more.. umm. worthy?
If it turns out that Willard's tax returns show a much lower figure for his financial support of the Mormon church than the ordinary Mormon pays I suspect it would create some internal strife within the church.
Pure speculation on my part triggered by some things I've read, I have no idea if this is true or not but given the way wealth and power normally work in America it would not surprise me in the least..
What if your bike was a pickup truck?
This is another of my finds while searching for practical two wheeled transportation.. In my state this would be legal to ride on the street with no license or insurance because the engine is under 50cc and it has operating pedals.
http://www.outsideconnection.com/gallant/hpv/mblue/
What if your bike was a station wagon?
I shop and run errands on a semi recumbent bike with a kid's ride behind trailer, it works pretty well for me but it's a trifle unwieldy, my entire rig is close to eleven feet long and the two wheel trailer means I have to pay attention to where the tires behind me are going to be on the road surface as well as where my front wheel goes..
So I've been searching for better ways to utilize a bike for my purposes, not really seriously but it's something I do from time to time and the other day I found this..
http://www.good.is/post/good-design-daily-what-if-your-bike-was-a-station-wagon/
The Camioncyclette isn't commercially available—the project was the designer's graduate thesis—but it does provide some really interesting insight into where bike design is going. The more we bike, the more we'll need to transport from point A to B. This could be the two-wheeled equivalent of the grocery-getter.
The frugal and energy efficient water heater turned out to be not so frugal after all..
Since I'm extremely limited on funds and I'm good at fixing the unfixable I barter my services for a lot of things I need, today's chore was an inoperative electric water heater in a neighbor's home..
This particular unit was Whirlpool energy efficient electric water heater that has a fancy electronic control unit with electronic heat sensors in it to help it conserve power.. At first view I suspected the control unit because the green LED on it that's supposed to be on when it's operating and blinking a code when it senses a problem was not lit. It took about five minutes with my multimeter to determine that the fancy electronic control unit was indeed pining for the fjords while the heating elements were still fine..
So I got on the intertrons to try and find a replacement electronic control unit for this circa ten year old water heater.. I figured it was probably futile and my suspicions turned out to be correct, the control unit is made from triply distilled unobtainum..
Now changing out a water heater is a fairly difficult process and when we started checking out the prices of replacement heaters my neighbor was in severe sticker shock.. $500 for one of this large size (big family needs lots of hot water).
After a little discussion my neighbor who has seen me bring broken items of his back to life before decided to go with my plan, buy the old style mechanical thermostats and shade tree engineer them into the water heater.. Twenty five dollars at the hardware store and a couple of hours cutting the sheet metal outside shroud on the heater to enlarge the two small element holes to fit the new thermostats and then splicing the original wiring into the new thermostats and hot water once again was flowing from the faucets..
I also fabricated new covers for the enlarged thermostat holes from scrap sheet metal and screwed them in place..
The great majority of people would have just given up and bought the new water heater but with a little ingenuity, a few basic tools and a little skill I saved my neighbor at least $450.. For my work I'll get a year of Wifi internet connection which basically will cost him nothing since he already pays for internet and doesn't begin to use the bandwidth he pays for since he mainly uses it for email, facebook and that sort of thing. I've done this particular trade with some of my neighbors before so I already have a high gain directional antenna I built that will let me pick up Wifi from a couple of blocks away so I'm golden there..
Just thought I'd put this out there as an example to my fellow frugalists of what can be done to save money on a major household appliance.
A win-win situation, both my neighbor and myself came out a long way ahead on the deal. I spent about four hours of my time to get what would cost me $400 or more through normal channels and my neighbor saved $450 or so that he couldn't really afford either.
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