Spreadsheet's Blog
Posted Thursday, June 30, 2011 10:12 PM
Do taxes bug you?
I mean, do you have a problem with the concept of taxes?
Not me.
In fact, I think we get a pretty good deal in the States. Property taxes got a cop at my house within minutes of a break-in several years ago, and the fire dept. and EMTs are ready in case something bad happens. The town plows my road in the winter, then in the spring repairs damage that the plows cause. When my kids were young, each of them got 12 years of good education.
State taxes allow me to take the dog on walks in state parks at no charge. Federal taxes will someday pay for my heath care, and provides for the common defense, even if we invade a few too many countries.
Bottom line: I'm OK with paying taxes, even if it pisses off a lot of my fellow citizens in the lower 48.
But I have problem with some taxes that will probably soon be imposed. In England.
Seems the Brits are a little short on funds, and rather than cut off the royals and make them go out and get jobs like the rest of us, they are hell bent on taking the easy way out and taxing online books.
Online gambling companies such as Ladbrokes and William Hill based in Great Britain have been able to avoid the heavy British tax burden that other companies face by locating their software elsewhere, such as Gibraltar, where taxes are as low as one percent of profits. Nice deal all around, and the lawmakers in England have been OK with it.
Bu... [More]
Posted Thursday, June 30, 2011 06:42 PM
Do taxes bug you?
I mean, do you have a problem with the concept of taxes?
Not me.
In fact, I think we get a pretty good deal in the States. Property taxes got a cop at my house within minutes of a break-in several years ago, and the fire dept. and EMTs are ready in case something bad happens. The town plows my road in the winter, then in the spring repairs damage that the plows cause. When my kids were young, each of them got 12 years of good education.
State taxes allow me to take the dog on walks in state parks at no charge. Federal taxes will someday pay for my heath care, and provides for the common defense, even if we invade a few too many countries.
Bottom line: I'm OK with paying taxes, even if it pisses off a lot of my fellow citizens in the lower 48.
But I have problem with some taxes that will probably soon be imposed. In England.
Seems the Brits are a little short on funds, and rather than cut off the royals and make them go out and get jobs like the rest of us, they are hell bent on taking the easy way out and taxing online books.
Online gambling companies such as Ladbrokes and William Hill based in Great Britain have been able to avoid the heavy British tax burden that other companies face by locating their software elsewhere, such as Gibraltar, where taxes are as low as one percent of profits. Nice deal all around, and the lawmakers in England have been OK with it.
Bu... [More]
Posted Monday, June 06, 2011 03:19 PM
The original members of the Chicago Crime Commission, an organization born to combat crime in the Roaring '20s when the police couldn't and/or wouldn't, are all dead now. But at least they went to their graves knowing they helped take down Al Capone and the mob which basically ran the city for a decade or more.
After that big splash, it figured that there would be a letdown, and while the CCC exists to this day, the members have had to be satisfied with ratting out an occasional street gang and running their annual golf tournament (June 20, if you're interested).
But now the crime busters have a new signature issue, devoting their PR machine toward warning the citizens of northern Illinois that organized crime will re-emerge from under the concrete and poison the lives of the city's millions of residents if the government allows them to play nickel slots at a proposed new casino.
The crime fighters don't seem to have much of a problem with the state's nine riverboat casinos, which have yet to shown any signs of a mob takeover. But if a bricks-and-mortar casino gets the approval of the governor and is built in downtown Chicago, then apparently it's just a matter of time before someone Tony Spilatro does to Chicago what Spilatro himself did to Vegas in the 1970s and '80s.
"Pure and simple, [if a casino is built] law enforcement can expect the entrance of the Crime Syndicate," says J.R. Davis, the CCC chairman. "Federal... [More]
Posted Friday, June 03, 2011 09:27 AM
Workers rights, sexism, age discrimination and a whole bunch of other isms are conflicting with the rights of an employer to run a business as he or she feels it should be run as the rebranding of the Resorts Hotel/Casino in Atlantic City takes an expected turn.
Nine drink servers were fired recently when the new bosses at Resorts said that they weren't sexy enough to fit the properity's new hip business model. The fired servers, some of whom have worked at Resorts for decades, say that they were humiliated when they were forced to wear ill-fitting outfits when they re-applied for their jobs under the new ownership, and that their only crime was their inability to create a time machine that would make them 25 years younger.
Resorts obviously sees things differently. Owner Dennis Gomes is trying to return the proprerty to profitiability in a tough economy, and says that the servers who were let go were unfortunate collateral damage. Nothing personal, Gomes says, but if we don't change things around quickly, there will be no jobs here for anyone.
The firing no doubt strikes a chord with many older workers who have lost jobs or been denied promotions, and the drink servers at the Rio in Vegas who lost their jobs several years ago when schleppers were also required to dance periodically can certainly identify.
Was Resorts' action morally right? Probably not.
Was it legally allowable? That's an entirely different question, and t... [More]