Pet Intellectual Peeves

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OldSchoolChamp
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by OldSchoolChamp »

Bamaman wrote:I got chased off a Facebook group recently.

I joined a group composed of people from the area where I grew up called "You know you from.....". People would mention places they used to eat, hang out, etc. I hadn't even noticed the name of the group. Then one day, the group administater posted a comment saying she had received complaints about the group's name and delted them because she didn't want negativity on the site. She said she wa skeeping hte name because even though she had a bunch of degrees, she didn't mind using ebonics. I said talking like that made you look like an uneducated buffoon.

Well, she didn't like that very much and said so. She again bragged about her degrees and said I didn't have to post there. She said comments others made didn't bother her and that they had the problem, not her. She said she did what they didn't have the balls to do and delted her comments. I told her she must have had a problem with them or else she wouldn't have deleted the comments. I said I wasn't staying hwre I wasn't wanted, so I left the group.
 
I’m sorry, is this a troll?
 
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by ej!fan »

I didn't even join the FB group that would apply to me because "Your probably from ..." just put me off too. I do read it and the grammar overall doesn't speak well for our local schools.
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Paucle
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Paucle »

What drove me crazy about "mine" was that nobody even tried to find similar comments to reply to. You'd see 15 different people posting about the same burger joint within a day or so. Gang, BROWSE a bit before posting. Maybe someone already covered your topic and you can enrich and expand upon their comment, collating memories instead of balkanizing the collective history of it.
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by dhkendall »

Paucle wrote:What drove me crazy about "mine" was that nobody even tried to find similar comments to reply to. You'd see 15 different people posting about the same burger joint within a day or so. Gang, BROWSE a bit before posting. Maybe someone already covered your topic and you can enrich and expand upon their comment, collating memories instead of balkanizing the collective history of it.
This is why I think people should pass an intelligence test to go on the Internet. Or own a computer. Or have kids. Or live.

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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Vanya »

I can't find one for my town. I'd start one but I suspect, now as then, most people would think they are too cool for it. And if they remember it, they weren't there.

ETA: thought I was having a flashback today; headline on msn: "Newton to start for Panthers."
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Rackme32 »

I joined one of those "You might be from..." Facebook groups (one of the two from my town; the starter of the 2nd one didn't bother to browse, either). I am sometimes ticked off by the incredibly bad spelling and grammar, nonexistent or incorrect punctuation, POSTS IN ALL CAPS ALSO FEATURING TYPO'S BAD SPELLING BAD GRAMMAR AND BAD/MISSING PUNCTUATION, etc.

Then again, some are so bad, I just crack up. My favorite is this one:

what about when you could smoke and chuw at high school

"CHUW"? Seriously? :) In addition to smoking and chewing whatever, this guy obviously didn't pay attention in spelling, nor did he pick up on the concept of punctuation... :)
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Paucle
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Paucle »

Rackme32 wrote:
what about when you could smoke and chuw at high school
"CHUW"? Seriously?
Who posted that one? Andruw Jones?
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by BoK »

Wisdom from USA Today:
http://www.usaweekend.com/article/20110 ... ps-rest-us
That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise.
This is in an article titled "Math tips for the rest of us." Feel free to send the raise to me. I'll pay the taxes on it.
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by --Pete »

Hi,
BoK wrote:Wisdom from USA Today:
http://www.usaweekend.com/article/20110 ... ps-rest-us
That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise.
This is in an article titled "Math tips for the rest of us." Feel free to send the raise to me. I'll pay the taxes on it.
I have been hearing that nonsense since I was in high school. It's amazing how many people don't understand the concept of a progressive tax.

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Volante
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Volante »

--Pete wrote:Hi,
BoK wrote:Wisdom from USA Today:
http://www.usaweekend.com/article/20110 ... ps-rest-us
That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise.
This is in an article titled "Math tips for the rest of us." Feel free to send the raise to me. I'll pay the taxes on it.
I have been hearing that nonsense since I was in high school. It's amazing how many people don't understand the concept of a progressive tax.

--Pete
And they can vote, too!

Edit: Not so much an intellectual peeve, but a peeve in general.
Websites that require javascript to make a simple stupid link to work. It's a bloody hyperlink, by Zod, not a damn flash game! Burn in hell, webnephew-of-actual-person-in-charge!! :evil:

Edit2: In response to that 2nd page of "justification", he pays $3 213 before (keeping $30 537) and pays $4 113 after (keeping $35 637). Disclosure: used calculator at http://www.dinkytown.net/java/Tax1040.html with a single personal deduction. I have no bloody clue what formula they came up with to justify the numbers on page 2.
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jpahk
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by jpahk »

this isn't necessarily stupid. the progressive tax rate is not a continuous function of income; it has discrete jumps, which could lead to the situation where an increase in gross income produces a decrease in net income.

as a concrete example, suppose you make $50k, then you get a $1000 raise that causes your tax rate to increase by 1%. you are paying roughly an extra $510 in taxes (1% of your new gross income, $51k, plus some percentage of the extra $1000), but making an extra $1000 gross, so you come out ahead. but if your salary was originally $150k (and everything else stayed the same), then the extra $1000 of gross income would cause you to pay an extra $1510 (actually a little bit over) in taxes. that would be bad.

now, i don't know the tax code inside and out, and it's possible that it's been designed so this can't happen. the finer the gradations, the less likely it is (and the smaller the effect would be if it does happen). but it's not impossible a priori.
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Rex Kramer
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As I told Regis . . .

Post by Rex Kramer »

jpahk wrote:as a concrete example, suppose you make $50k, then you get a $1000 raise that causes your tax rate to increase by 1%. you are paying roughly an extra $510 in taxes (1% of your new gross income, $51k, plus some percentage of the extra $1000) . . .
The mistake that you, and presumably a large portion of the general public, are making is assuming that the increased tax rate applies to all of your income. It does not. Our progressive tax only applies progressively higher tax rates to that portion of yearly income that is above each threshold. In your example, if you start with a tax rate of X, and then say that you get a $1000 raise that increases your tax rate by 1%, what that really means is that only the portion of income above the threshold is subjext to a tax rate of X+1%. All of your "old" income is taxed as it was before. Therefore, unless you were already paying 100% tax, any amount over the threshold, no matter how heavily taxed, represents increased takehome pay.

To be more explicit: suppose you make $50k and it is taxed at 25%, and suppose further that anyone who earns $50,001 or more is pushed into the 50% tax bracket. Getting a raise of $1000 does not increase your taxes from $12,500 ($50k x 25%) to $25,500 ($51k x 50%). Instead, the first $50k is taxed at 25%, as it was before, and the $1000 raise alone is taxed at 50%, so your taxes go to $13,000.

Under this system, no increase in income can lead to a decrease in take-home pay.
jpahk wrote:now, i don't know the tax code inside and out, and it's possible that it's been designed so this can't happen.
Note, however, that our tax system is not that cut-and-dried. In addition to our progressive rates, which are simple and straightforward and do not cause loss of take-home pay with increasing income, we also have a number of tax credits and deductions which vary according to adjusted gross income, as well as an alternative minimum tax which can sometimes impose additional tax based on non-adjusted gross income. Thus, while the progressive tax alone can never lead to loss of take-home with increased salary, there are some odd scenarios in which an increase in salary could conceivably lead to enough losses of credits and deductions that there is a net loss of take-home. I don't know the numbers but I would expect such scenarios to be very unusual; the taxpayer would not only have to be in a position to receive multiple income-dependent credits and deductions but would also have to be right on a threshold at which each of them would be affected by a slight raise. Also, if an increase in salary is enough to cause the alternative minimum tax to kick in, it's conceivable that the increase in tax could exceed the amount of the salary increase -- I don't know the numbers well enough to know if this actually happens in practice, but it's obviously a different kind of scenario because it involves moving from one tax regime into another.

Rex
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Volante
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Volante »

jpahk wrote: as a concrete example, suppose you make $50k, then you get a $1000 raise that causes your tax rate to increase by 1%. you are paying roughly an extra $510 in taxes (1% of your new gross income, $51k, plus some percentage of the extra $1000), but making an extra $1000 gross, so you come out ahead. but if your salary was originally $150k (and everything else stayed the same), then the extra $1000 of gross income would cause you to pay an extra $1510 (actually a little bit over) in taxes. that would be bad.
That's not how it works. Period.

Entering a new tax rate only affects the income earned at that rate.
Income earned between 0 and $8,500 is taxed at 10%. Period.
$8,501 to $34,500 = 15%. Period.
$34,501 to $83,600 = 25%. Period.

So let's say you earn $34,500 in a year putting you in the 15% bracket.
Then you get a raise of $1,000, putting you at $35,500 and into the 25% bracket.
But only that $1,000 over $34,500 is taxed at a 25% rate. Everything else is taxed at the previous rates. Your raw tax payment only goes up $250.

I won't deny there might be a fluke area of income where AMT lies (i.e., if your income before a raise put you under the AMT and after over it, but if you're worrying about the AMT you've likely got a tax preparer anyway) but at the basic level, a new tax bracket only applies to the income earned within that tax bracket.
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Vanya »

Pet peeve of mine: everything discussed in that article is arithmetic, not mathematics (not "math," another pet peeve).

They fixed the article.
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Volante »

Vanya wrote:Pet peeve of mine: everything discussed in that article is arithmetic, not mathematics (not "math," another pet peeve).

They fixed the article.
They did fix the article! That's so incredibly awesome. (Also lost their 2nd page as a result. As punishment, we're cutting your page hits in half! Noooooo!!!)

An earlier version of the story below misstated the impact of tax brackets on raises.
That's putting it gently... :lol: Wonder if the book that article inspired is still wrong, though...well, I won't be buying it to find out.

(Also...since when is arithmetic not math?)
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Volante
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by Volante »

Volante wrote:
Vanya wrote:Pet peeve of mine: everything discussed in that article is arithmetic, not mathematics (not "math," another pet peeve).

They fixed the article.
They did fix the article! That's so incredibly awesome. (Also lost their 2nd page as a result. "As punishment for misleading the public, we're cutting your page hits in half!" "Noooooo!!! Think of my ad hits!")

An earlier version of the story below misstated the impact of tax brackets on raises.
That's putting it gently... :lol: Wonder if the book that article inspired is still wrong, though...well, I won't be buying it to find out.

(Also...since when is arithmetic not math?)
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by --Pete »

Hi,
Volante wrote:
Vanya wrote: Pet peeve of mine: everything discussed in that article is arithmetic, not mathematics (not "math," another pet peeve).
(Also...since when is arithmetic not math?)
All arithmetic is math but not all math is arithmetic.

And "math" has been used for "mathematics" since 1847 according to M-W online. Seems to be pretty well accepted.

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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by jpahk »

oh, interesting. yes, that's a smarter way to do it. thanks for educating me.
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Re: As I told Regis . . .

Post by gnash »

Rex Kramer wrote: Note, however, that our tax system is not that cut-and-dried. In addition to our progressive rates, which are simple and straightforward and do not cause loss of take-home pay with increasing income, we also have a number of tax credits and deductions which vary according to adjusted gross income, as well as an alternative minimum tax which can sometimes impose additional tax based on non-adjusted gross income. Thus, while the progressive tax alone can never lead to loss of take-home with increased salary, there are some odd scenarios in which an increase in salary could conceivably lead to enough losses of credits and deductions that there is a net loss of take-home. I don't know the numbers but I would expect such scenarios to be very unusual; the taxpayer would not only have to be in a position to receive multiple income-dependent credits and deductions but would also have to be right on a threshold at which each of them would be affected by a slight raise. Also, if an increase in salary is enough to cause the alternative minimum tax to kick in, it's conceivable that the increase in tax could exceed the amount of the salary increase -- I don't know the numbers well enough to know if this actually happens in practice, but it's obviously a different kind of scenario because it involves moving from one tax regime into another.
I am pretty sure that no such scenario exists now if you consider only cash and not in-kind or limited-purpose benefits. If you consider all benefits (which are typically not part of the tax code), then there clearly are such scenarios for people around the poverty limit. The most significant one is losing Medicaid eligibility, and a similar situation may arise from losing food stamps (but that depends on whether the food stamps are all-or-nothing or phased out - I think they are phased out gradually, but I am not sure - and whether it coincides with the upward- or downward-sloping part of the EITC).

As the provisions of the ACA take effect, the Medicaid anomaly will be partially moved into the cash domain: up to 133% of poverty, you'll qualify for Medicaid and pay nothing for health insurance, but at 134% of poverty, you'll be expected to pay 2% of your income. At that level of income, that's currently about $300 per year for a single person and $600 for a family of 4. Some say it's a major flaw in the ACA, but it is important to understand that before the reform, when you lose Medicaid coverage, there may not be anything else to replace it (and, in most cases, able-bodied, non-pregnant, non-elderly adults couldn't qualify for it at any income level), so the ACA is reducing the economic disincentive to earn (if not the accounting one).
Last edited by gnash on Wed Sep 07, 2011 10:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Pet Intellectual Peeves

Post by gnash »

BoK wrote:Wisdom from USA Today:
http://www.usaweekend.com/article/20110 ... ps-rest-us
That raise actually might not be as good as it looks. The extra money is nice, but it could very well bump you into the next tax bracket, possibly leaving you with less money than you had before the raise.
This is in an article titled "Math tips for the rest of us." Feel free to send the raise to me. I'll pay the taxes on it.
While the tax nonsense was clearly the most egregious mistake, every part except the bottled water is wrong or misleading. If you drive a lot, buy a car that depreciates quickly (most domestic brands and most cars that cost over $35,000 or so), and have a longer-term loan (like 5 years or more), you can pay 20% down and still at some point owe more than the car is worth. (OTOH, my 20-month-old Honda Fit seems to be worth about 90% of its original purchase price.) It's ridiculous to say that a household shoud spend 18% on groceries without knowing what the household's income is; also, most people with average or below-average income cannot feasibly save 10%.

Generally, a pretty reliable rule is: any financial advice you can find in the popular media is probably crap.
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