Fire 1 - DC United 0.
The second and final leg of the series is November 1, and the scoring is cumulative, so if the Fire win or tie, they go through to the semifinals.
Great game!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Interesting: Chicago Fire win Game 1
Fire 1 - DC United 0.
The second and final leg of the series is November 1, and the scoring is cumulative, so if the Fire win or tie, they go through to the semifinals.
Great game!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Helpful: Sales Taxes on services
In Illinois, sales taxes only apply to the sale of goods, not services. So you pay 9% on a Big Mac, but 0% on your personal trainer, stock broker, or lawyer.
The Governor tried to address this by rolling out a General Receipts Tax, which would get at some of those services, but he is so inept and politically bankrupt right now that service industries crushed him.
Meanwhile, check this out:
Taking a quick look at census business data:
Top 6 sectors for Cook County (by % of total payroll spending)
15% Finance
13% Professional, Scientific, Tech
11% Health Care
10% Manufacturing
7% Wholesale Trade
6% Management of companies
That means that #1, #2, #3 and #6 of our top sectors (making up 45% of our economy) pay little to no sales tax. Include them, but reduce the rate, and you can get it passed.
The Governor tried to address this by rolling out a General Receipts Tax, which would get at some of those services, but he is so inept and politically bankrupt right now that service industries crushed him.
Meanwhile, check this out:
Taking a quick look at census business data:
Top 6 sectors for Cook County (by % of total payroll spending)
15% Finance
13% Professional, Scientific, Tech
11% Health Care
10% Manufacturing
7% Wholesale Trade
6% Management of companies
That means that #1, #2, #3 and #6 of our top sectors (making up 45% of our economy) pay little to no sales tax. Include them, but reduce the rate, and you can get it passed.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Interesting: Why I hate protest marches
Ezra Klein hits it right on the head.
I think it's almost certainly wrong that we're not overwhelmed by the volume of tragedy in the world -- there'd have to be something genuinely wrong with you to be able to absorb the current moment in some coherent way. So what many of us do is pick and choose. But once an issue is selected, there's no real step two. Marching doesn't work. Exhortations to write a letter or shoot an e-mail seem increasingly hoary, particularly as the process is taken over by organized pressure groups able to flood legislators with millions of e-mails. Volunteers are generally misused, and even when a campaign tries to construct a movement out of them, it can backfire, discrediting the whole enterprise (see Dean, Howard, and those $%*^*# orange beanies). The utter inadequacy of contemporary methods of protest and social action has been well established -- it's even been recast as narcisstic.
What to do instead? Let me know if you come with anything.
I think it's almost certainly wrong that we're not overwhelmed by the volume of tragedy in the world -- there'd have to be something genuinely wrong with you to be able to absorb the current moment in some coherent way. So what many of us do is pick and choose. But once an issue is selected, there's no real step two. Marching doesn't work. Exhortations to write a letter or shoot an e-mail seem increasingly hoary, particularly as the process is taken over by organized pressure groups able to flood legislators with millions of e-mails. Volunteers are generally misused, and even when a campaign tries to construct a movement out of them, it can backfire, discrediting the whole enterprise (see Dean, Howard, and those $%*^*# orange beanies). The utter inadequacy of contemporary methods of protest and social action has been well established -- it's even been recast as narcisstic.
What to do instead? Let me know if you come with anything.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Helpful: GTD on HP
You know I love me some GTD - now the David has a regular column on Huffington Post with GTD tips. Hey Carrie - read that book!
David Allen: Think Smarter By Capturing Your Ideas - Living Now on The Huffington Post
David Allen: Think Smarter By Capturing Your Ideas - Living Now on The Huffington Post
Interesting: Red Card
A great blog about the Chicago Fire, my local MLS soccer team. The Fire beat Beckham and LA Galaxy on Sunday to make it into the playoffs. Game 1 against DC United is Thursday!
Helpful: Backup your data
We have about 50 GB of music, movies, etc. in our iTunes catalog. That's hundreds of CDs from high school and college, hundreds of downloaded albums, podcasts, speeches, and videos of our cat. We had them all stored on an external hard drive, which we bought about 4 years ago.
Last Monday, the external hard drive crashed. It's worthless, and the data is irretrievable from the drive.
But there's a happy ending to this story.
A month ago after reading a series on Lifehacker, Cindy and I talked about our backup situation, and I signed us up for Mozy, an online backup service that charges $55/yr. for unlimited storage. Once I signed up, I selected the music drive and copied all of the files to the Mozy server. It took two weeks for the full backup, but once it was done, it automatically updated the backup whenever we added new music or files.
After the crash, I bought a new drive, selected the music files on Mozy, and started to upload them back to the new drive. It will take two weeks for the full transfer, but that is a short time to wait considering the vast amount of music on the line.
Important data must be in at least two places to be safe, and preferably, one of those places should not be in your house. Whether you have Mac or PC, Mozy is a great solution.
Last Monday, the external hard drive crashed. It's worthless, and the data is irretrievable from the drive.
But there's a happy ending to this story.
A month ago after reading a series on Lifehacker, Cindy and I talked about our backup situation, and I signed us up for Mozy, an online backup service that charges $55/yr. for unlimited storage. Once I signed up, I selected the music drive and copied all of the files to the Mozy server. It took two weeks for the full backup, but once it was done, it automatically updated the backup whenever we added new music or files.
After the crash, I bought a new drive, selected the music files on Mozy, and started to upload them back to the new drive. It will take two weeks for the full transfer, but that is a short time to wait considering the vast amount of music on the line.
Important data must be in at least two places to be safe, and preferably, one of those places should not be in your house. Whether you have Mac or PC, Mozy is a great solution.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Not Helpful: Pennies per gallon
Crazy how getting one small detail wrong can lead to such problems. Last night in my transportation finance class, we discussed the federal and state gas taxes.
Problem 1) Taxes are calculated in cents per gallon, so as gas prices rise, the tax collected remains the same. If prices increase enough and drivers choose more fuel-efficient cars or drive less, fewer gallons are purchased and thus fewer taxes are collected. The wear and tear on roads may be reduced, but not enough to make a difference.
At the same time, oil companies make increasing profits because the taxes are a fixed cost, not a variable one. Assume the current $.18/gallon federal tax rate and gasoline that costs $1.00 to produce. The oil company can make a profit of 10% by charging $1.31 for each gallon. In that case, for a total sale of $1.31, the government collects $.18 (13.1%) in taxes, and the oil company makes $.13 (10%) profit.
If the production cost of gasoline is now $3.00 with the same $.18/gallon tax, and the oil company charges $3.53, the government gets $.18 (only 5.1%) and the oil company gets $.35 (10%) profit.
Add in inflation and other increasing costs for road construction and maintenance, and you end up with rapidly shrinking highway and transit funds, plus increased oil company profits.
Problem 2)
In Illinois, More than 50% of state gas taxes are shared with municipalities, counties, and regions, so every level of government is dependent on automobile driving. Not only that, since the revenues are collected based on gallons purchased, there is an incentive to encourage auto-centered development and low gas mileage. Hello strip malls!
Problem 1) Taxes are calculated in cents per gallon, so as gas prices rise, the tax collected remains the same. If prices increase enough and drivers choose more fuel-efficient cars or drive less, fewer gallons are purchased and thus fewer taxes are collected. The wear and tear on roads may be reduced, but not enough to make a difference.
At the same time, oil companies make increasing profits because the taxes are a fixed cost, not a variable one. Assume the current $.18/gallon federal tax rate and gasoline that costs $1.00 to produce. The oil company can make a profit of 10% by charging $1.31 for each gallon. In that case, for a total sale of $1.31, the government collects $.18 (13.1%) in taxes, and the oil company makes $.13 (10%) profit.
If the production cost of gasoline is now $3.00 with the same $.18/gallon tax, and the oil company charges $3.53, the government gets $.18 (only 5.1%) and the oil company gets $.35 (10%) profit.
Add in inflation and other increasing costs for road construction and maintenance, and you end up with rapidly shrinking highway and transit funds, plus increased oil company profits.
Problem 2)
In Illinois, More than 50% of state gas taxes are shared with municipalities, counties, and regions, so every level of government is dependent on automobile driving. Not only that, since the revenues are collected based on gallons purchased, there is an incentive to encourage auto-centered development and low gas mileage. Hello strip malls!
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