A Joke And What It Reveals

[richpo64]

cro wrote:
>>my worry is that I don't have the extra four years to recover from these tax and spend assholes.<<

I understand. I should have also mentioned charitable donations. We'll have to do the liberal thing and let the government handle that for us. Squirrel it away.

[BT]

The guy did a mediocre job for below-mediocre wages.  I don't want to reward him for his mediocrity, but I don't want to participate in his economic exploitation either.

What economic exploitation? A waiter or waitress in the end is nothing more than a commissioned salesperson. Their earnings are directly related to their performance. If the food is substandard they fix the problem, if the table was not clean they fix the problem. They control their own destiny.

The more pleasant  the "experience"  the more they make. The less pleasant the "experience" the less they make.

[Plane]

The guy did a mediocre job for below-mediocre wages.  I don't want to reward him for his mediocrity, but I don't want to participate in his economic exploitation either.

What economic exploitation? A waiter or waitress in the end is nothing more than a commissioned salesperson. Their earnings are directly related to their performance. If the food is substandard they fix the problem, if the table was not clean they fix the problem. They control their own destiny.

The more pleasant  the "experience"  the more they make. The less pleasant the "experience" the less they make.

I would like to know more about how it came to be so , this is one of the few jobs specially fixed in the minimum wage law.

[BT]

I would like to know more about how it came to be so , this is one of the few jobs specially fixed in the minimum wage law.

I think it came about from the IRS and regulations that stated that all wait staff must be paid at least minimum wage and that taxes and fica be deducted from that. Credit cards hastened the change. Cash tips are notoriously under reported and the IRS was looking for a way to get  their hands on at least some of that cash.

[Plane]

I would like to know more about how it came to be so , this is one of the few jobs specially fixed in the minimum wage law.

I think it came about from the IRS and regulations that stated that all wait staff must be paid at least minimum wage and that taxes and fica be deducted from that. Credit cards hastened the change. Cash tips are notoriously under reported and the IRS was looking for a way to get  their hands on at least some of that cash.

Does the IRS assume that they make 8% of their income in tips?

[Michael Tee]

<<my worry is that I don't have the extra four years to recover from these tax and spend assholes.>>

This after eight years of Republican government turned a healthy surplus into a half-trillion dollar deficit and saddled the nation with a total of $3 trillion dollars in expenses for a completely unnecessary war, still consuming $10 billion a month with no end in sight.

Hilarious

[Michael Tee]

<<You are making black and white judgements here.   First of all, while you are anxious for me to support someone that has slipped through the proverbial cracks... you also want me to have some poor bastard having a bad night fired.   >>

Uhh, if you recall, I recommended that you tell the manager exactly what your complaint was, so that it wouldn't prejudice the waiter.  Remember, we're just talking mediocre, not really bad, service.  There's no  real reason to anticipate that an owner or manager will file a good waiter for having a bad day but if it happens, it's an unexpected example of poor management judgment which could not have been anticipated and therefore which is the fault of management, not  your fault.

It would be crazy to refrain from doing the right thing simply because it might have consequences that could not be anticipated because they are irrational and uncommon.  It would be like failing to stop at a stop sign because someone might surge out of the bushes and attempt to attack you in your car.

<<Second of all good places do support bad service, I have eaten out in many gourmet restaurants and have watch many of them driven into the ground by bad management.  >>

Then by definition, those are not good places.  A restaurant is more than just the cooking.  It's the total or overall experience that it represents.  So if the service is bad, the overall experience is bad and you need to find another place.

<< So whilst you are patting yourself  on the back for your logic here... you are culling many points of the debate to prop up your bias.>>

Sorry, cro, my "bias" ("POV" is a better description) stands on its own two feet.

[Plane]

<<my worry is that I don't have the extra four years to recover from these tax and spend assholes.>>

This after eight years of Republican government turned a healthy surplus into a half-trillion dollar deficit and saddled the nation with a total of $3 trillion dollars in expenses for a completely unnecessary war, still consuming $10 billion a month with no end in sight.

Hilarious

"Surplus"? The national debt hasn't been paid to nothing since Andrew Jackson retired.

[BT]

Does the IRS assume that they make 8% of their income in tips?

They assume they make much more than 8% of their income on tips. They just have a hard time proving it.

How much cash does a good pole dancer make at a strip club? How much do you think she reports?

[Amianthus]

"Tipped" jobs are required to report the cash earned in tips as well. Before clocking out, the manager is supposed to get the total of tips in cash and it's entered into the computer, along with the tips entered via CC. Then the pay is calculated based on the total; if it's less than minimum wage, the employer must pay out the difference (so it's in the employer's best interest to get an accurate cash total). Total tip income is reported to the IRS, as well as earned pay. I assume there are penalties imposed on the employers as well if they don't accurately report tips. Typically, tips paid via CC are also cashed out of the drawer nightly - makes book keeping easier, as ONLY the total of the actual sales then ends up in the drawer, and they then don't have to pay the CC tips in the weekly payroll.

[Michael Tee]

<<"Surplus"? The national debt hasn't been paid to nothing since Andrew Jackson retired.>>

Let's put it another way:  The increase in the public debt of the U.S. from the end of fiscal year 2000 to the end of fiscal year 2008, corresponding roughly to the eight years of the G.W. Bush administration, was from $5.674 trillion to $10,024 trillion, or $4.350 trillion.

The increase in the public debt for the ten years from the end of fiscal year 1990 to the end of fiscal year 2000 (from $3.233 trillion to $5.674 trillion) was $2.441 trillion, and if we want to convert that to an eight-year figure representing the eight years of the preceding administration, a rough way of doing this would be to reduce the ten-year figure to 80% of its value, or $1.953 trillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Any way you want to look at it, cro is concerned about having to repay the excesses of a "tax and spend" Democratic "asshole" administration, notwithstanding the fact that the Bush administration increased the national debt by about $4.350 trillion in eight years as compared to only $1.953 trillion more or less in the eight years of the preceding Democratic administration.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

[sirs]

It does when the previous Democrat administration had a GOP House that actually kept the President's feet to the fire in the way of being fiscally responsible

[Plane]

<<"Surplus"? The national debt hasn't been paid to nothing since Andrew Jackson retired.>>

Let's put it another way:&nbsp; The increase in the public debt of the U.S. from the end of fiscal year 2000 to the end of fiscal year 2008, corresponding roughly to the eight years of the G.W. Bush administration, was from $5.674 trillion to $10,024 trillion, or $4.350 trillion.

The increase in the public debt for the ten years from the end of fiscal year 1990 to the end of fiscal year 2000 (from $3.233 trillion to $5.674 trillion) was $2.441 trillion, and if we want to convert that to an eight-year figure representing the eight years of the preceding administration, a rough way of doing this would be to reduce the ten-year figure to 80% of its value, or $1.953 trillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Any way you want to look at it, cro is concerned about having to repay the excesses of a "tax and spend" Democratic "asshole" administration, notwithstanding the fact that the Bush administration increased the national debt by about $4.350 trillion in eight years as compared to only $1.953 trillion more or less in the eight years of the preceding Democratic administration.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

So Clinton had the best business climate the world has ever seen and our debt rose during his "surplusses" "only" two trillion?

At the end of the Clinton term he hands over a ship of state with a hole in the bottom because a bubble was bursting , then our financial centers get burned down by terrorists , and the diffrence is only two trillian more than the growth of the debt during the "good times"?

What is the diffrence supposed to be between peacetimes with a burgioning new industry ,and wartime with an attack on the capitolist corps?

Next correct for inflation, the diffrence shrinks a little.

Then account for the overall growth of the economy , so that the comparison of debts &nbsp;is purportional to the overall size of the sorce of payments and resorces availible. The Contental Congress had a debt load that was pitifull and outsized compared to their tax base , even though the total amount of debt seems rediculously small compared to todays debt , it was a worse debt then than now.

[Michael Tee]

<<So Clinton had the best business climate the world has ever seen . . . >>

I really don't know what that means.  And even if I did know what it meant, how could the "business climate" affect the national debt?  The business "climate" is good or bad for businessmen, the national debt is a measure of the prudence or imprudence of the government of the day.

<< . . .and our debt rose during his "surplusses" "only" two trillion?>>

in accordance with your earlier observation about surplus, I approached the absurdity of cro's statement with a different set of parameters not relying upon the concept of surplus, so I'm not sure why you are reinserting the term into the argument at this stage.

<<At the end of the Clinton term he hands over a ship of state with a hole in the bottom because a bubble was bursting . . . >>

So apparently a Republican administration which has eight years to fix a hole in the bottom of the ship of state is totally incapable of doing so, and yet cro is still more concerned with the potential debts to be run up by "tax and spend asshole Democrats" than by an administration which ran up more than TWICE the debt of its predecessor, blaming a "hole in the bottom" which in eight years they were unable to fix.

And also, you will have to explain to me - - since the Democrats are "socialists" but the Republicans are not - - how is it that a bursting bubble, which affects equities held by private interests exclusively, not by the U.S. government - - is going to affect the debt owed by the U.S. government to its creditors??  This has to be one of the wildest stretches of political fantasy even for you to attempt.

<< . . .  then our financial centers get burned down by terrorists >>

Oh, were they government property too?  Did it cost the U.S. government $4.350 trillion dollars to replace "its" two buildings?   

<< . . . and the diffrence is only two trillian more than the growth of the debt during the "good times"?>>

Uh, excuse me, since the "non-socialist" Republican-controlled government of the U.S.A. did not own the business sector, which remained in private hands, how on earth did the misadventures and misfortunes of the business community force the stewards of the public purse to incur roughly $2.4 TRILLION more dollars of debt than their Democratic predecessors?

<<What is the diffrence supposed to be between peacetimes with a burgioning new industry ,and wartime with an attack on the capitolist corps?>>

If you remember, it was the Republicans who chose to make a "war" of this attack by nineteen men, first on the entire nation of Afghanistan and then - - incomprehensibly, in the view of most observers today - - on the nation of Iraq.  The choice they made - - to go to war with TWO countries over an attack by 19 nationals of a third country - - was an initiative taken and pursued by Republican leaders, yet it is the "tax and spend asshole Democrats" that has cro in fear of her financial viability???

<<Next correct for inflation, the diffrence shrinks a little.>>

Not by any amount that would make cro's fears any less ridiculous, though.

<<Then account for the overall growth of the economy , so that the comparison of debts &nbsp;is purportional to the overall size of the sorce of payments and resorces availible. The Contental Congress had a debt load that was pitifull and outsized compared to their tax base , even though the total amount of debt seems rediculously small compared to todays debt , it was a worse debt then than now.>>

Sorry, but I am NOT going to get into a discussion with you about the finances and tax base of the Continental Congress, a little bit before my own time, believe it or not, and something about which I know absolutely jack-shit.  Nor am I going to get into discussions about the nebulous "growth" of the economy, especially now when it appears that GDP is actually shrinking.  How on earth an economy could have been deemed "growing" during the Bush years, when the trade deficit was perpetually expanding, the dollar shrinking and good jobs fleeing non-stop in every direction but home, is one of life's little mysteries to me, comparable perhaps to John Insane's fatuous declaration that "the fundamentals of the economy are strong."  That the public debt was INCREASED by $4.350 TRILLION during a time when the economy was so clearly in the toilet is one of the grossest signs of the total incompetence of the Republican administration imaginable, and one more reason to scratch one's head in wonderment at the idea that one could be concerned about the ability to pay the debts of a "tax and spend asshole Democratic" administration.  I mean, WHAT PLANET do these people live on?

[Amianthus]

I really don't know what that means.  And even if I did know what it meant, how could the "business climate" affect the national debt?  The business "climate" is good or bad for businessmen, the national debt is a measure of the prudence or imprudence of the government of the day.

A good business climate also means that tax revenues are generally higher than in a bad business climate.