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Finger People - Universal Language - Honduras

Saturday, December 21, 2024

It's so simple - It's not Socialism - It's not Communism - It's a Living Wage!

 

It is the only plank you need in your political platform!

...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. ...

 

What's a 'Living Wage'? What's a 'Poverty Wage'?

It's so simple - It's not #Socialism - It's not #Communism - It's a #LivingWage!  It is #Liberty and #Happiness 

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

What's a 'Living Wage'? What's a 'Poverty Wage'?

 Living Wage calculator (MIT)


The living wage shown is the hourly rate that an individual in a household must earn to support themselves and/or their family, working full-time, or 2080 hours per year. The tables below provide living wage estimates for individuals and households with one or two working adults and zero to three children. In households with two working adults, all hourly values reflect what one working adult requires to earn to meet their families’ basic needs, assuming the other adult also earns the same.

The poverty wage and state minimum wage are for reference purposes. Poverty wage estimates come from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Poverty Guidelines for 2024 and have been converted from an annual value to an hourly wage for ease of comparison. The state minimum wage data is sourced from the Labor Law Center and includes the minimum wage in a given state as of January of that year.

For further detail, please reference the Methodology page. The data on this page was last updated on February 14, 2024.






















What's a 'Living Wage'?  What's a 'Poverty Wage'? $20 in Wisconsin for 'Living'!

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

ProPublica: How a Decades-Old Loophole Lets Billionaires Avoid Medicare Taxes 12/11/24

 

ProPublica 12/11/24


How a Decades-Old Loophole Lets Billionaires Avoid Medicare Taxes

Some of Wall Street’s richest and most powerful figures are using a legal loophole to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes earmarked for health care, a ProPublica investigation found.


The three billionaires contacted for this article said they followed the law as written. They also pointed to the fact that they paid substantial income tax, which for them carries a much higher rate. Medicare tax is 2.9% for most people and 3.8% for high earners.

 

But these maneuvers by the rich hasten Medicare’s future crisis. Sometime in the 2030s, the program’s trust fund is due to run dry. Closing the loophole, along with eliminating other ways around the tax for wealthy business owners, could raise more than $250 billion over 10 years for Medicare, according to recent government estimates



Billionaries - Never enough  - Billionaires Avoid Medicare Taxes 

Saturday, November 23, 2024

Deep State - Trump and Psycho Warfare ... Fire Everybody

 


https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235


published April 2024


Does this report satisfy the definitional precision required to get a 'ballpark' sense that firing all federal employees does not reduce the annual federal budget by much?

It does have a 'sociological' impact, when ignored however, which is the real purpose to serve an audience that probably is willing to think the 'firing' would reduce the budget significantly.

Do the arithmetic (271 billion / 6.272 trillion) =  4.03 % of the budget !


In this report, the Congressional Budget Office compares the cost that the federal government incurred in 2022 for the wages and benefits of its civilian employees with the cost that private employers incurred for employees who appear similar in their educational attainment and other observable characteristics likely to affect wages.


Summary

The federal government employs about 2.3 million civilian workers—or 1.4 percent of the U.S. workforce—in jobs that represent over 650 occupations at more than 100 agencies. It competes with private-sector employers for people who possess the mix of attributes needed to do the work of its various agencies.

In fiscal year 2022, the federal government spent roughly $271 billion to compensate those civilian employees. About 60 percent of that total was spent on civilian personnel working in the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. (bold added)

Compared with private-sector workers, federal workers tend to be older, more educated, and more concentrated in professional occupations. To account for those differences, the Congressional Budget Office limited its comparisons to employees with a set of similar observable characteristics—education, occupation, years of work experience, geographic location, size of employer, veteran status, and certain demographic characteristics (sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, immigration status, and citizenship)—in this report.

Even so, the estimates do not show precisely what federal workers would earn if they were employed in comparable positions in the private sector. Even among workers with similar observable characteristics, federal and private-sector employees may differ in other traits, such as motivation or natural ability, that are not easy to measure but that can greatly affect individuals’ compensation.

This analysis focuses on wages, benefits, and total compensation (the sum of wages and benefits). It is intended to address the question of how the federal government’s compensation costs would change if the average cost of employing federal workers was the same as that of employing private-sector workers with certain similar observable characteristics (the benchmark group). This analysis looks at compensation in 2022 because the temporary effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the federal and private-sector workforces had largely subsided by then. 


 #DeepState - #Trump and #Psycho Warfare ... Fire Everybody ... 

#DeepState - #Trump and #Psycho Warfare ... Fire Everybody ...  At best looking in the wrong shallow rabbit hole

Thursday, July 18, 2024

What happens - Pre-Mortem ! Ukraine forced to capitulate! Taiwan succumbs to China ! US Defense Capability (no chips)? US Debt % zooms UP - Treasury collapse?!

 

What happens - Pre-Mortem ! #Ukraine forced to #capitulate! #Taiwan succumbs to #China ! #USDefense Capability (no chips)? #USDebt % zooms UP ?- #USTreasuryCollapse ? #Trump #Project2025 #Vance


What happens - Pre-Mortem ! #Ukraine forced to #capitulate! #Taiwan succumbs to #China ! #USDefense Capability (no chips)? #USDebt % zooms UP ?- #USTreasuryCollapse ? #Trump #Project2025 #Vance - What happens - Pre-Mortem !

#Trump #LifeThreat #Existential #WWIII brought to you by the #GOP

APNORC.org poll: Democrats seem to feel really strongly that Trump should not be President?

 

When I found this image/page 'methodology' popped into my mind?  Who did they survey ... voters? No!

The answer was 'households'.  Next question was how was the blue or red ball selected ... this starts to get tricky or problematic.  That does not mean they were doing a good or bad job ... all I CAN DO IS GO HMMMM!  There is some weighting going on?

The beauty of polls ... there are so many to choose from and you can never stick your foot in the same river twice.

Most of us rely on someone to interpret the poll for us ... what do they really know - hard to know?  ... and the way things are titled/labeled ... bias ... apples to apples or apples to oranges in this case.

To me I looked at the 'Overall' category and conclude that neither Trump nor Biden should be running for President with less confidence in Biden!   Not a surprise given 'current' events.  How about in 100 days?

57% think Trump should withdraw and 71% think Biden should withdraw - 14 point difference w/o knowing confidence bounds.  Remember these are estimates from household sample not voters which is to say confidence bounds are even more uncertain.  The wider the bounds means another sample is likely to give very different 'estimates'.


At this point the 'tea leaves' have been muddled ... personally my call would be based on who do I trust to look out for 'democracy'.  That's easy ... someone with a track record of 'empathy' not someone who thinks they are a victim, judged and convicted of felonies under rule of law by their peers.


Democrats seem to feel really strongly that Trump should not be President,  Independents less so ... again we come down to turnout by these crudely 'sampled and modeled' groups.


#Project2025 should terrify you (and your loved ones) - it's not about #freedom ... 






















Joe Biden withdrew July 21, 2024.


Poll

#APNORC.org poll: #Democrats seem to feel really strongly that #NotTrump should not be #President? 57% think #Trump should withdraw and 71% think #Biden should withdraw.