Interesting - I've never heard a Canadian complain about their health care system, mostly because my family keeps up a unified front with their "Canada is so much better than the US, eh?" speeches.
I didn't realize until recently that Canadians still had to pay insurance on top of the tax rate; I just assumed it was all taken care of through the taxes. I do think that that was a major flaw with the NY Times article as well; the author discusses the monthly cost of his family's health insurance in the Netherlands (under $400, as opposed to over $1,000 in the US), but that's ON TOP OF the 52% tax rate.
feel free to move south, into the good 'ol US of A, then get sick or have some type of catastrophic illness.. you've gotta pay for it, one way or another, nothing is free.. the marginal rate my be less upfront, but you pay for it in the end.. good luck on that move..
the only reason I would move south would be for the weather (living on the Wet Coast does get a bit water logged)..
so if i use just the ordinary homemade still with the old pot with a hole in it with some piping going from the fermenting yeast to the pot thats holding the lightning is there anything i need to worry about? and i read above about removing the heads and tails?? does anybody know what this is about? please! im going to try and make some lighting soon so please help!!
I don't like the idea because I live in a sort-of similar system here in Canada
I personally am not keen on it because I don't see or experience any benefits except seeing money fly out of my wallet just because I happen to make too much.
I don't mind paying taxes, it's what keeps our roads nice, and people employed, etc etc... but over 50% is the reason why I am leaving to go to the U.S.
I doubt that Americans will ever live in a fully socialist society like the Dutch. This country is just too independent and every-man-for-himself-yto allow it. It IS kind of ironic that it might not be that big a difference in terms of our taxes, though, isn't it?
I don't have a romantic view of any of the early socialist countries like China or the USSR. My grandmother's family had their home and land confiscated, and my great-grandfather was sent to Siberia and the kids and mother handed over to the Nazis by the Bolshevik government.
The Netherlands doesn't seem to have quite the same problem with totalitarianist rule - you don't hear about Dutch people losing their homes for criticizing the government, so I don't think that it's a fair comparison. It is possible, these days, to have a truly democratic socialist society, unlike the USSR and Socialist China.
And I have experienced firsthand just how strange and uncreative an effect that kind of "Resistance is Futile, We Are All THE SAME" mentality can have on a population while living in China. I witnessed, time and time again, people having a really hard time navigating around something on the road, like a large piece of garbage, that everyone steadfastly refused to move because it was the government's job to pick up the garbage.
The author of the article posits that the Dutch are able to accept a socialist system because they've always had to be so collective - there's also the implication that they're all sort of the same (all white, not a lot of religious differences). China is much more diverse, and I think the lack of creativity and initiative that held the country in its grip for so long was the result of the totalitarian practices that were used to FORCE everyone to believe that they were all the same. China was NOT a collective group of people before the Communist unification - the country is HUGE, and there are such giant differences from province to province in language, culture, ethnicity...
I'm less concerned about abuses of the socialist system (there will always be welfare cheats, and I don't think that their presence is enough to derail a good thing if it's a good fit). I was interested in the fact that the author didn't mention anything about the living situation of immigrants to the country, as The Netherlands have a big immigrant population from Turkey and North Africa and lots of strife resulting from so much of that cultural clashing. I'm assuming that many of the immigrants live in public housing?
I do think, however, that Americans are probably going to have to brace for a socialized medical system. The Canadians and the Dtuch have been working together to try to perfect such a system. We can howl all we want about higher taxes (I know I will), but everyone is pretty united in the understanding that the system, as it is, is pretty untenable.
A few of the comments are arguing about management versus workers. But the post is not pitting management against workers. In fact the managers and CEO's also get paid wages that are part of the totals listed. The post is about wages relative to corporate profits.
Question one might ask is : Where are all the profits going? Have corporate stockholders all become more and more wealthy in the past 4 decades? Where is that money? In Bill Gates giant safe or in the pension funds of retired little old ladies?
I'm curious if the corporate profits include the gains from overseas income? What about sale of goods produced with cheap overseas labor? I might guess that the more and more stuff that US firms manufacture overseas would lead to less of the money going to US based wages as a proportion of the corporate income.
If you think about it logically, of course packages get their in the same amount of time in a lot of instances!
I worked at FedEx Ground and UPS in college as a loader/sorter. It's not like they purposefully slow down non-priority packages.
The only time you really experience a difference is if it is far enough away that a plane needs to be used. In those cases parcel will go via truck and priority will go on the plane.
Usually. (That's the way it seems to work in the package business ;) heh)
I once had a problem with a Priority Mail package. It wasn't needed by a certain day, but it was needed soon (an out of town friend had left her cell phone behind.) When it didn't arrive within a week, I contacted the Post Office, who refused to do anything - not even investigate until a month or two had passed. The package was delivered about a month later.
However, last Christmas, I was sending packages from California - one to Maryland with USPS Priority, and one to Texas with FedEx 2nd Day. The Priority Mail to Maryland was delivered first. So sometimes the post office beats FedEx for price AND speed.
I WISH IT WOULD BECAUSE IM BROKE DISCUSTED AND CANT BE TRUSTED I NEED SOME CHA-CHING IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN. U YES U SINGLE MOM STOP WORRYING SO MUCH ABOUT WHAT THE PAST PRESIDENTS R DOING YOUR WASTEING YOUR TIME. PUT YOUR FAITH IN GOD NOT MAN.IF U BELEIVE,I HOPE.
The NY Daily News story is, indeed, extremely unscientific. If you're looking mostly at shipments within a certain radius, then regular letter post can be pretty darn fast and priority is no advantage, unless you need proof of shipment. But if you're sending something several thousand miles, priority will usually be faster.
Many cities use their collected yard waste as mulch... Our utility company will drop off a truckload for free if you call them. Good if you are planning a big project.
Don't forget that the I Bond and EE Bond are exempt from most state income taxes and are a Federal income tax deferred investment. Combined that with they can be redeemed at any bank if you move from state to state they have inducements to hold on to them. No charge for replacements if they are lost or stolen as well! I am holding on to my $5000 worth of bonds purchased from 2000 to 2005. Won't buy any new ones however feel safe having a "rainy day" fund available if all else fails. Thanks for the information!
I am one of those rare people who has actually gotten money BACK from the post office. Basically, we live out of state of the rest of our family, and sending Christmas boxes is about the only time we send ANYTHING ourselves. So we pay extra to insure that it gets there and at the time we asked for. We even track it online and call family, and the MOMENT that it's NOT there on time...off to the post office with receipt and printout of the tracker stating that it's NOT delivered yet. Go up and tell them that per their rules, you get your money back. If they say no (which they've tried only once!), ask to speak with the postmaster. That did the trick for us, as the postmaster was taking no nonsense.
Unfortunately for OUR post office, the ones in Missouri (where our family lives) always seem to get the packages stuck in Kansas City around Christmas, so they USUALLY have to give our money back. Can't beat free box mailing, right? *grin* Now if I have to send letters or something that is REALLY important...UPS or FedEx is the way to go...but I've only done that once...
Nobody ever said Priority is guaranteed. Its not even called "2 day" or "3 day" delivery". Their website says: "Delivers within 2 days in most cases." Who is going to read that and then assume theres a guarantee or get all upset that it didn't get their in 2 days?
If you want guaranteed delivery time then pay for Express mail or use UPS or Fedex. Sure it will cost you 3-5 times as much. But even then that 'guarantee' only goes so far. UPS will delay delivery due to weather or other events out of their control and that is an exception to their guarantee. UPS and Fedex are not above occasionally damaging or misplacing packages. Trust me I worked in a UPS hub for a while. I saw more than one package with a footprint on it and 'fragile' means *nothing*.
Swoopo is not a scam. It is a great business model.
The company is upfront about everything.
It is people not reading the rules or understanding how hard it is to win an auction and greed taking over that has everyone screaming CON or SCAM!
When the fayre comes to town and you try out the gun range and the dodgy gypsey has bent the rifles barrel, that is a scam!
However throwing a ring over a bottle neck where the ring only just fits around the bottle is not a scam! You just have to be very lucky to win the cuddly toy!.
Used to pay extra for certified mail to mail rent checks. One time it was lost and arrived a month late with a shoeprint on it. Another time it was returned to sender as having the wrong address, even though it had the right address on it.
This has never happened with regular first class mail, which gets there faster and right on time.
However, I did receive a Christmas card sent first class from grandma with an envelope that was literally shredded with only the remains of my address on it. The card and what I hope is the whole contents seemed to be intact and it was all held together with a couple of rubber bands, and marked "damaged". I have no idea how that happened. (caught in a machine?)
Very interesting article. I have signed up for the free trial month of credit monitoring at Myfico.com, and I have to admit their service is very cool. They email you a notice when your credit score changes, and it is somewhat addictive to know what's going on with one of those mysterious numbers. A full year's subscription is $90, though, and I'm not sure if I want to pay that much for what is (for me) mostly a toy or for curiosity's sake.
Interesting - I've never heard a Canadian complain about their health care system, mostly because my family keeps up a unified front with their "Canada is so much better than the US, eh?" speeches.
I didn't realize until recently that Canadians still had to pay insurance on top of the tax rate; I just assumed it was all taken care of through the taxes. I do think that that was a major flaw with the NY Times article as well; the author discusses the monthly cost of his family's health insurance in the Netherlands (under $400, as opposed to over $1,000 in the US), but that's ON TOP OF the 52% tax rate.
feel free to move south, into the good 'ol US of A, then get sick or have some type of catastrophic illness.. you've gotta pay for it, one way or another, nothing is free.. the marginal rate my be less upfront, but you pay for it in the end.. good luck on that move..
the only reason I would move south would be for the weather (living on the Wet Coast does get a bit water logged)..
so if i use just the ordinary homemade still with the old pot with a hole in it with some piping going from the fermenting yeast to the pot thats holding the lightning is there anything i need to worry about? and i read above about removing the heads and tails?? does anybody know what this is about? please! im going to try and make some lighting soon so please help!!
I don't like the idea because I live in a sort-of similar system here in Canada
I personally am not keen on it because I don't see or experience any benefits except seeing money fly out of my wallet just because I happen to make too much.
I don't mind paying taxes, it's what keeps our roads nice, and people employed, etc etc... but over 50% is the reason why I am leaving to go to the U.S.
FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com
I doubt that Americans will ever live in a fully socialist society like the Dutch. This country is just too independent and every-man-for-himself-yto allow it. It IS kind of ironic that it might not be that big a difference in terms of our taxes, though, isn't it?
I don't have a romantic view of any of the early socialist countries like China or the USSR. My grandmother's family had their home and land confiscated, and my great-grandfather was sent to Siberia and the kids and mother handed over to the Nazis by the Bolshevik government.
The Netherlands doesn't seem to have quite the same problem with totalitarianist rule - you don't hear about Dutch people losing their homes for criticizing the government, so I don't think that it's a fair comparison. It is possible, these days, to have a truly democratic socialist society, unlike the USSR and Socialist China.
And I have experienced firsthand just how strange and uncreative an effect that kind of "Resistance is Futile, We Are All THE SAME" mentality can have on a population while living in China. I witnessed, time and time again, people having a really hard time navigating around something on the road, like a large piece of garbage, that everyone steadfastly refused to move because it was the government's job to pick up the garbage.
The author of the article posits that the Dutch are able to accept a socialist system because they've always had to be so collective - there's also the implication that they're all sort of the same (all white, not a lot of religious differences). China is much more diverse, and I think the lack of creativity and initiative that held the country in its grip for so long was the result of the totalitarian practices that were used to FORCE everyone to believe that they were all the same. China was NOT a collective group of people before the Communist unification - the country is HUGE, and there are such giant differences from province to province in language, culture, ethnicity...
I'm less concerned about abuses of the socialist system (there will always be welfare cheats, and I don't think that their presence is enough to derail a good thing if it's a good fit). I was interested in the fact that the author didn't mention anything about the living situation of immigrants to the country, as The Netherlands have a big immigrant population from Turkey and North Africa and lots of strife resulting from so much of that cultural clashing. I'm assuming that many of the immigrants live in public housing?
I do think, however, that Americans are probably going to have to brace for a socialized medical system. The Canadians and the Dtuch have been working together to try to perfect such a system. We can howl all we want about higher taxes (I know I will), but everyone is pretty united in the understanding that the system, as it is, is pretty untenable.
A few of the comments are arguing about management versus workers. But the post is not pitting management against workers. In fact the managers and CEO's also get paid wages that are part of the totals listed. The post is about wages relative to corporate profits.
Question one might ask is : Where are all the profits going? Have corporate stockholders all become more and more wealthy in the past 4 decades? Where is that money? In Bill Gates giant safe or in the pension funds of retired little old ladies?
I'm curious if the corporate profits include the gains from overseas income? What about sale of goods produced with cheap overseas labor? I might guess that the more and more stuff that US firms manufacture overseas would lead to less of the money going to US based wages as a proportion of the corporate income.
If you think about it logically, of course packages get their in the same amount of time in a lot of instances!
I worked at FedEx Ground and UPS in college as a loader/sorter. It's not like they purposefully slow down non-priority packages.
The only time you really experience a difference is if it is far enough away that a plane needs to be used. In those cases parcel will go via truck and priority will go on the plane.
Usually. (That's the way it seems to work in the package business ;) heh)
I once had a problem with a Priority Mail package. It wasn't needed by a certain day, but it was needed soon (an out of town friend had left her cell phone behind.) When it didn't arrive within a week, I contacted the Post Office, who refused to do anything - not even investigate until a month or two had passed. The package was delivered about a month later.
However, last Christmas, I was sending packages from California - one to Maryland with USPS Priority, and one to Texas with FedEx 2nd Day. The Priority Mail to Maryland was delivered first. So sometimes the post office beats FedEx for price AND speed.
Are there any corvette doing 30 miles per gallon ?
I send packages FedEx Ground. Delivery in 3-7 days and trackable. Nearly always cheaper than parcel post via USPS.
I even shipped a large heavy painting to Vancouver Island BC via FedEx Ground for less than taking it as excess baggage on the plane with me.
I WISH IT WOULD BECAUSE IM BROKE DISCUSTED AND CANT BE TRUSTED I NEED SOME CHA-CHING IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN. U YES U SINGLE MOM STOP WORRYING SO MUCH ABOUT WHAT THE PAST PRESIDENTS R DOING YOUR WASTEING YOUR TIME. PUT YOUR FAITH IN GOD NOT MAN.IF U BELEIVE,I HOPE.
I also meant to add that priority flat rate prices are often not that much more than parcel post rates.
The NY Daily News story is, indeed, extremely unscientific. If you're looking mostly at shipments within a certain radius, then regular letter post can be pretty darn fast and priority is no advantage, unless you need proof of shipment. But if you're sending something several thousand miles, priority will usually be faster.
Many cities use their collected yard waste as mulch... Our utility company will drop off a truckload for free if you call them. Good if you are planning a big project.
Don't forget that the I Bond and EE Bond are exempt from most state income taxes and are a Federal income tax deferred investment. Combined that with they can be redeemed at any bank if you move from state to state they have inducements to hold on to them. No charge for replacements if they are lost or stolen as well! I am holding on to my $5000 worth of bonds purchased from 2000 to 2005. Won't buy any new ones however feel safe having a "rainy day" fund available if all else fails. Thanks for the information!
Spend Less! Earn More!
Wow!
Profound!
P.S. We also always send said boxes Priority with lowest level insurance.
I am one of those rare people who has actually gotten money BACK from the post office. Basically, we live out of state of the rest of our family, and sending Christmas boxes is about the only time we send ANYTHING ourselves. So we pay extra to insure that it gets there and at the time we asked for. We even track it online and call family, and the MOMENT that it's NOT there on time...off to the post office with receipt and printout of the tracker stating that it's NOT delivered yet. Go up and tell them that per their rules, you get your money back. If they say no (which they've tried only once!), ask to speak with the postmaster. That did the trick for us, as the postmaster was taking no nonsense.
Unfortunately for OUR post office, the ones in Missouri (where our family lives) always seem to get the packages stuck in Kansas City around Christmas, so they USUALLY have to give our money back. Can't beat free box mailing, right? *grin* Now if I have to send letters or something that is REALLY important...UPS or FedEx is the way to go...but I've only done that once...
you should be allowed to make money any way you want to, legit or unlegit.
"For the most part, I’m more than satisfied with the job they do, especially in lieu of the horrendous amounts of mail the have to handle."
In lieu means "instead" like "donate to charity in lieu of sending gifts". I think you meant "in light of"
Nobody ever said Priority is guaranteed. Its not even called "2 day" or "3 day" delivery". Their website says: "Delivers within 2 days in most cases." Who is going to read that and then assume theres a guarantee or get all upset that it didn't get their in 2 days?
If you want guaranteed delivery time then pay for Express mail or use UPS or Fedex. Sure it will cost you 3-5 times as much. But even then that 'guarantee' only goes so far. UPS will delay delivery due to weather or other events out of their control and that is an exception to their guarantee. UPS and Fedex are not above occasionally damaging or misplacing packages. Trust me I worked in a UPS hub for a while. I saw more than one package with a footprint on it and 'fragile' means *nothing*.
Swoopo is not a scam. It is a great business model.
The company is upfront about everything.
It is people not reading the rules or understanding how hard it is to win an auction and greed taking over that has everyone screaming CON or SCAM!
When the fayre comes to town and you try out the gun range and the dodgy gypsey has bent the rifles barrel, that is a scam!
However throwing a ring over a bottle neck where the ring only just fits around the bottle is not a scam! You just have to be very lucky to win the cuddly toy!.
I use greywater from my rinse water for my dishes & clothes to water my lawn.
Used to pay extra for certified mail to mail rent checks. One time it was lost and arrived a month late with a shoeprint on it. Another time it was returned to sender as having the wrong address, even though it had the right address on it.
This has never happened with regular first class mail, which gets there faster and right on time.
However, I did receive a Christmas card sent first class from grandma with an envelope that was literally shredded with only the remains of my address on it. The card and what I hope is the whole contents seemed to be intact and it was all held together with a couple of rubber bands, and marked "damaged". I have no idea how that happened. (caught in a machine?)
Very interesting article. I have signed up for the free trial month of credit monitoring at Myfico.com, and I have to admit their service is very cool. They email you a notice when your credit score changes, and it is somewhat addictive to know what's going on with one of those mysterious numbers. A full year's subscription is $90, though, and I'm not sure if I want to pay that much for what is (for me) mostly a toy or for curiosity's sake.