decimation: asciilifeform: there's a great deal of bureaucracy surrounding employment in the us

decimation: mainly because there is no free market for 'health insurance', retirement, etc. even if you opt out you still need to file paperwork

decimation: and of course usg needs to know about your employment situation

decimation: not because they are nosy busybodies but because they just want properly calculated taxes, you see

decimation: I think most folks just wing it and adjust when the tax bill comes due

decimation: it's amusing that usg taxes labor at usurious rates and then whines about how employment is so low

decimation: more like cow still has blood, room for more gnats

decimation: asciilifeform is that why usg employee's income is not 'pretaxed'?

decimation: my company hires an old woman to assemble circuit boards, we pay her as an independent contractor. apparently the state has been harassing the company because the state presumes that her 'independent contract' is really an employment contract

decimation: asciilifeform: these days the double tax isn't as bad because the mortgage interest rates are low

decimation: but I agree with your point

decimation: my point is that a real estate agent is considered an independent contractor even when she works in an office with a secretary

decimation: gov't asks no questions

decimation: yeah you must pay the employer's share of the 'social security payroll tax'

decimation: beyond the usurious rates, it is a double insult that usg insists that you participate in its crimes against honest accounting while paying 'tax' with your tax

decimation: mircea_popescu: obviously at the cost of draining productivity from the minority of the productive, but that hasn't stopped usg in the past

decimation: meanwhile there's a special exception written in the law that requires the irs to presume that engineers are not independent contractors

decimation: for the same reason the law also allows the importation of indian & chinese indentured servants

decimation: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/27/business/how-a-tax-law-helps-insure-a-scarcity-of-programmers.html

decimation: diametric has a point

decimation: an 'employee' is at the mercy of his management to decide how to spend business revenue

decimation: although even the independent contractor can't buy a company car for commuting, because the irs says so

decimation: usg's official rate is $0.56 per mile http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,-Medical-and-Moving-Announced

decimation: there's no doubt that 'owning' a business is a good way to skate usg taxes

decimation: the rule of thumb is that you pay at least as much this year as the previous

decimation: that generally makes you fairly immune to serious harassment, at least in the opinion of some accountants I know

decimation: but of course this kind of thing varies by case

decimation: or selling real estate

decimation: it's well known that greek & asians often operate cash businesses while staking tax

decimation: a friend told me that when he was three, his mom took her cash receipts from the family restaurant to the auditor, along with the screaming three year old. the auditor settled for $100 after a few hours of screaming

decimation: "Donna Steele Flynn, a former member of the House Ways and Means Committee staff who is now a tax specialist with Ernst & Young, said, ''The only reason this hasn't gotten fixed is because the official Joint Tax Committee estimate in the past was that repeal of Section 1706 would cost a billion dollars in tax revenue over five years.''There is a political will on both sides of the aisle, but in terms of importance and number of

decimation: people, a billion dollars is a lot of money for a relatively small number of people.'"'

decimation: in other words we realize the we are thieves and will happily make unprincipled exceptions when we decide we can do so

decimation: in more other words, the 'political will' of a collection of elected lawyers with real estate side business all agree that they should not pay while others pay

decimation: indeed. The other day I was trying to find an etf or stock that didn't depend on 'bezzle' (ie usg fiat finance). I didn't succeed.

decimation: asciilifeform: I assume you live in some old suburb near DC - have you ever sat down to total the 'value' of the homes within a few blocks of where you live?

decimation: it's quite easy to come to billions of $ for obviously shitty hovels

decimation: yeah I've mentioned the "MD 200" fiasco

decimation: I've been on it a couple times. it's luxurious to weave across 3 empty lanes

decimation: 'seinfeld' style

decimation: mircea_popescu: yeah I figured it was hopeless, but I wanted to pretend like my bezzlars were not locked in a usg approved cage

decimation: with bitcoin, the 'free market' in us finance starts to look like a massive dekulakization experiment

decimation: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-icc111004,0,3081191.story "Flanagan announced last week that the estimated cost of the highway, which would run from U.S. 1 in Laurel to the Interstate 270 corridor in Montgomery County, had increased from the previous projection of $1.7 billion. ... Under current law, 87 percent of future increases would be available for non-ICC projects; the administration wants to make that 80 percent.

decimation: "

decimation: asciilifeform: after working closely with usb, do you see it as an evil spec?

decimation: yeah I don't see how 'usb' was an improvement over say 'rs-422'

decimation: yeah ssl is the usb of IP

decimation: in the us, even in commercial electronics, it is common for people who have no connection with any practical manufacturing/programming to 'design' specs

decimation: right, because they are 'qualified'

decimation: for another thing the practical folks are off doing something useful rather than travelling to LA to 'agree on a spec'

decimation: related: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/02/the-nsa-and-me/ << "Many were embarrassingly critical of the agency, describing its enormous paranoia and obsession with secrecy. Others contained clues to a secret trips that Friedman had made to Switzerland, where he helped the agency gain backdoor access into encryption systems that a Swiss company was selling to foreign countries."

decimation: the bigger puzzle is why such a company has any clients at all

decimation: yeah I buy that

decimation: apparently codeine cough syrups are available only in certain us states

decimation: same with mdma precursors like pseudo-ephedrine in the us

decimation: ;;ticker

decimation: old Republicans see the truth, can do nothing about it: http://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/the-forever-war/

decimation: and http://www.unz.com/pbuchanan/war-drums-along-the-potomac/ "Given our horrified and hyperbolic reaction, ISIS can credibly make this boast to the jihadists from Nigeria to the Hindu Kush, from Libya to Iraq, from Somalia to Syria:

decimation: “ISIS is the enemy the Great Satan fears and hates most. ISIS is the Islamist organization that strikes fear into NATO. Not al-Qaida, not Boko Haram, not Ansar al-Sharia, not the al Nusra Front — ISIS."

decimation: you told me a few hours ago that third world derps are easily impressed/swayed, seems to me that whatever bs cnn is pimping would carry sway with the third world masses

decimation: third world chieftains

decimation: well you have a point there

decimation: it's true that cnn's bs won't sway that hardened jihadis, but it will carry sway with n00bs who just want to shoot somebody, ie cannon fodder

decimation: all they need to know is that the great satan hates isis

decimation: amusing http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra << some derpy latina with moxy joins the fed, is assigned to goldman, and is shocked to discover that the fed is composed of spineless twerps

decimation: ;;ud moxie

decimation: she released 'secret tapes' of her conversations with other fed employees & goldman

decimation: One episode - her boss "Mike Silva" was about to go to a meeting where Goldman was going to buy the shady assets of a Spanish bank - and it required the Fed's "no objection" "And one of the things that caught Carmen’s eye was a short paragraph that the banks had written into the agreement. It said that Goldman had to notify the Fed about the Santander deal and obtain a quote,“no objection.""

decimation: "Mike Silva: My own personal thinking right now is that we’re looking at a transaction that’s legal but shady. I want to put a big shot across their bow on that. Poking at it, maybe we find something even shadier than we already know. So let’s poke at this thing, let’s poke at it with our usual poker faces, you know. I’d like these guys to come away from this meeting confused as to what we think about it. I want to keep

decimation: thennervous."

decimation: Later in the meeting with Goldman, here's his "poking to make them nervous": "Mike Silva Just to button up one point. I know the term sheet called for a notice to your regulator. The original term sheet also called for expression of non-objection, sounds like that dropped out at some point, or...?

decimation: Jake Bernstein: That’s everything he says on the topic in this meeting."

decimation: well, since it is fed policy to keep all meetings with banks secret, I guess only a few know the reality

decimation: agreed, but it's not like one needs substantial evidence to imagine that usg employees are derpy bureaucrats who kowtow to people who make literally 10x their salary

decimation: asciilifeform: The traditional method of 'cashing out' is to take a job with the regulator's target after a few years to establish bona fides

decimation: at any rate, I doubt that these fed employees carry much weight anyway, because someone in goldman can make a phone call to their boss's boss's boss and work out whatever deal needs to be made

decimation: ah, well that happened after the above Mr. Silva fired the latina with moxie: "In the statement the Fed sent us last week, they say, quote, “The decision to terminate Ms. Segarra’s employment with the New York Fed was based entirely on performance grounds, not because she raised concerns as a member of an examination team about any institution.” In the spring, a judge threw Carmen’s suit out saying the law Carmen sued the Fed

decimation: under did not apply in this case"

decimation: asciilifeform: re: tax authorities << http://www.govexec.com/defense/2014/07/millions-tax-debt-wont-stop-you-qualifying-pentagon-security-clearance/89831/

decimation: well, I suspect the 'right people' (ie friends and family of the SES crowd) meet the criteria

decimation: mircea_popescu: well it is likely the case that the goldman people are the 'betters' of the usg employees in many ways

decimation: generally those that 'start in the fed' are going to be given 'make-work' jobs anyway, because it is known that their use was delivering usg decisions, not having skills

decimation: asciilifeform: I suspect mainly the latter is the case

decimation: asciilifeform: in the beginning the 'boss' says this about his tenure on the staff of Tim Geithner during the 2008 'crisis':"

decimation: Mike Silva: And when I realized that nobody had any idea how to respond to that, I went into the bathroom and threw up. Because I realized this is it, it’s just this small group of people, and right now at this moment we have no clue. I never want to get close to that moment again"