PRay TeLL, Dr. Hash

<p>Small Business is the bedrock of a Capitalistic society yet over two-thirds fail. They certainly shouldn't have any counterproductive drag imposed by Government: we need Small Business to be encouraged not discouraged. How Government was able to make Ma-n-Pa shops socially responsible for the people who work for them is the worst example of role confusion & evasion. There shouldn't be...

<p>Some people insist your home is not an investment, and should be treated differently, tax-wise, than other investments, that's why you can deduct your home's Property Taxes & Mortgage interest. But what is one person's incentive is another person's “loophole.” Home ownership deductions are seen as loopholes to some because owning a home is not something people in the cities do. In...

<p>We have decided, as a society, that we want people to own houses. We want them to send their kids to college, and even go themselves. We want them to save money to retire, reduce their carbon footprint, and take care of their parents who have moved in due to Old Age. We vote, there's a lot of us, and we want it. Contrary to popular misconception, the primary benefit of taxes is to redistr...

<p>I remember the Tax Dodge schemes of the past when marginal tax rates were high. All kinds of ridiculous, goofy little businesses, like raising lamas, were set up to shelter income. Though obviously unjustifiable on economic grounds, as something interesting, and as employers of various-skilled people, they were optimal ways of building the economy and creating jobs. Sailing colonies? Rura...

<p>The median income in the U.S. is $52K. Average CC debt is $16K, which took about 5 years to accumulate. So, roughly, for every $1 the average American earns, their investing return, so to speak, is -6%. That's NEGATIVE six percent. Now, let's roughly calculate the ROI for the Top 1% of the population: </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1% of the population have 40%...

<p>A third of all revenue to Government comes from Payroll taxes, that money Workers have automatically deducted from their paycheck to cover Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment & Injury. In the case of Medicare, money is deducted from every dollar an employee earns, regardless how poor they are, and Social Security isn't much better. What's insane is that workers won't receive any b...

<p>Let's be honest, if financial opportunity is the measure of success, America has a LOT more losers than winners. If not for the concept of the “American Dream,” the idea that anyone can rise up to make a fortune from their own effort, the shear numbers of losers, especially in a democracy, would seem to overwhelm the few winners, but our indoctrination is holding, and mostly we don't...

<p>Taxation is a tricky subject because it's so personal & the reasons for taxation are so confused. In a Liberty society, people should benefit from their actions & circumstances, even if it is mostly luck, because virtual lottery tickets are property rights. On the flip side, redistribution of lucky wealth is mandatory to maintain a viable society, though not for the usual reasons...

<p>"Middle Class" in America is supposedly as little as $40K per year, but that number seems to be chosen to keep the figures from looking so grim; it really takes $80-100K a year to live what Americans consider a fulfilling life. Upper Middle Class is well into the 6-figures, usually via two high wage-earners, maybe total $250K per year in a city. A healthy society would expect an...

<p>A society can focus on its most competent individuals, or its least capable members, but not both, one group must become subservient to the needs of the other. It seems obvious that aligning a society behind its most competent individuals, a meritocracy, would be ideally effective and practical, but this simple straightforward outlook on life is very controversial because there are many p...

<p>Let's review the depths of our feelings of emotion:</p> <ol> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Human beings default to their base emotions, and only rise above them with effort.</p> </li> <li> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Without love, humanity would simply be animals.</p> </li> <li> <p style=&quo...

<p>IQ is controversial because it measures people against people, and nobody in the bottom half likes that... I wouldn't like that, which is why IQ deserves to be heavily scrutinized but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. The real danger is misapplication, and drawing unwarranted conclusions for political reasons. For example, in group comparisons of U.S. math & science students ver...

<p>The argument AGAINST testing students in school is strong only because the testing model is the same as the teaching model: large groups of kids sitting at desks at the same time, grouped by age. Absolutely outdated, ridiculous & perverse. However, student testing is the secret of Charter Schools & alternative learning methods: as long as a student reaches the equivalency standard...

<p>Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000002101 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000002084</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There's a difference between smart and intelligent: smart is quick response, facile speech & prodigious memory skills. Medical students are smart. Intelligence is the ability to solve unique problems. Intelligent people can synthe...

<p>Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000001893 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000001876</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Everybody thinks they're the center of the universe... And they're right. As long as you're trapped inside your own head, what other people think & need are almost inconsequential; they might as well all be figments of your imagin...

<p>Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000002053 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000002036</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We are always in a battle for control, sometimes taking, mostly losing. Knowing that you are being manipulated is the first priority but then you have to know how, and that can be more difficult. The most effective manipulation is tha...

<p>Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000002005 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000001988</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">If we somehow criminalize taunting, scorn & ridicule like we have bullying, then the only incivility left as a club to beat our fellow human beings will be... Shunning, which is Constitutionally protected by our Freedom of Associa...

<p>Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000001666 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000001649</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Taunting is not something you regularly see a lot of outside of sports & kids movies, probably because it seems both ineffective & juvenile. T<span lang="en">here are professional taunters, called satirists, th...

<p>Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000168 EndHTML:0000001812 StartFragment:0000000438 EndFragment:0000001795</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The most odious, life-altering contagion of children and adults alike is scorn & ridicule. Juvenile scorn & ridicule may leave psychology scars, but in adulthood, scorn & ridicule has become a science of personal destructi...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Childhood is a traumatic time but monsters in the closet are nothing compared to the fear-induced paralysis caused by bullies. Physical bullying has always been terrible, much worse for males than females, but girls get enough of it to know how frightening it is walking to school or going out for recess where the bullies have access to you. Thankfully...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">People only voluntarily cooperate if they benefit from it, like any transaction. In a Liberty society, most cooperative relationships are as voluntary allies; even if you don't like the person or organization you are cooperating with, the advantage to you is more than if you didn't cooperate, so you do. In this atmosphere, cooperating entities each ha...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Debate is not criticism. Discussion is not criticism. Opinion is not criticism. Criticism is destructive, and most criticism germinates from spite & vindictiveness. There is no higher form: constructive criticism is an oxymoron, criticism is never constructive, that's why it's called criticism & not a suggestion. Being a critic is the easiest...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">What is empathy? It's a word that was only made up in the early 1900s and has found a lot of traction because it's subjective, so anyone can say there isn't enough of it, whatever it is? According to dictionary.com, empathy is "the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another."...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">A person & community is primarily the sum of instinctual human emotions, mostly negative: envy, spite, resentment, vindictiveness, greed, covetousness, avarice, lust, and of course, hate. Evolutionarily speaking, fear is running & hate is killing. Hate does not always lead to killing but eliminating a competitor or a source of stress can be ad...

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Love is real; at least the genetically-programmed infatuation kind that causes young boy's hearts to ache & their faces to color when the Little Red-Haired Girl is close. I certainly experienced it when I was younger, the thing we call romantic love but is obviously raging hormones. I felt that way about my wife as a teenager, and when we're apart...