Ping Larkin

He probably kept the receipt alright. But a high-Dollar receipt without a clear link that he actually paid that himself (credit card slip etc.) will certainly raise the hackles of an auditor if claimed as a materials expense. Of course since he most likely flies under the radar all the time there won't be any. Problem is, the more such businesses get milked the more of them will completely dive under, IOW not "officially" exist and never file.

Try reading a few of their financial statements. With practice it's not that hard. But you have to do it.

True, they can lie, but that's not hard to spot. I avoid those. I listened to Ken Lay pitch the Enron miracle for 30 seconds and knew. Ditto Citibank, Freddie, Fannie, etc.

Government's more problematic. They spin, obfuscate, underreport, hide, etc. Try reading Freddie and Fannie's reports. Or tracking down Medicare costs.

All our social "trusts" are empty piggy banks, literally Ponzi schemes where the 1rst in get paid off by the latecomers. For companies, that's a felony.

Pelosi's recent health care bill estimates, using /her/ outlandish assumptions, were grossly understated. Calculator abuse. I wrote that, and now AP and others concur. Were Pelosi a CEO she'd be in jail. Instead, she's Speaker.

Suppose John Larkin decided to report only 2/3rds of his company's income--what would the IRS think of that?

Madoff was a rookie, a piker.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

The Nigerians don't need help from multinationals; thay are perfectly competant to abuse themselves.

John

My CPA wouldn't sign off on the tax returns, for starters. The most we dare get away with is expensing pizza for design reviews.

John

It makes sense to shift taxes to services that can't easily be outsourced to other countries, and reduce taxation on manufactured goods that can. That helps retain jobs. Do you disagree?

And why not have sales taxes on lawyers and auto repair and hair cutting?

John

The government doesn't publish financials--it just does whatever it wants to. It doesn't have a CPA, and it doesn't have to obey the law. Handy, eh?

Hey, since Mr. Obama's touting the benefits of "competition" in healthcare, how 'bout a competitor for the IRS? You know, to provide services cheaper, better, and faster?

Oopps, I just burped and accidentally created or saved 3 jobs. How do I collect my $750K?

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Your attempt at parody can't begin to approach the insanity of Obamareality:

"At Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, director Myrtis Mulkey-Ndawula said she followed the guidelines the Obama administration provided. She said she multiplied the 508 employees by

John

We do in the uk and the rest of europe. It's call vat, or value added tax and is payable on just about everything at a fixed rate of 17.5%. Service industries and lawyers included :-). No one likes it, but it seems to work. The more you consume, the more tax you pay. Some things are exempt, but not many.

My guess is that it's only a matter of time before the us does something similar...

regards,

Chris

No, that's another tax on income, which is wrong. With a purchase tax, the doctors and lawyers and other bureaucrats will pay their tax when they buy toys and boats and SUVs and stuff.

Thanks, Rich

Just what I like, a regressive tax. ;-)

No way. How do you expect the Demonicrats to control society without the power to tax indiscriminately?

=20

I can't claim to really know, but i get this twitchy feeling that it would produce very small incremental damage that would lead to lifetime type problems.

You don't know, and it won't.

John

_You_ don't know, and it might. Depending on the energy there can be gradual electromigration.

However, I earlier opined that IDSS would likely limit the current to a safe level... but that's not certain, 'VHC' devices are pretty small (short-channel), fast, and low ON resistance.

Since I did a redesign of that stuff for ON Semi, I have the device-level models. When I get a free moment (don't hold your breath :-), I'll run an energy dump on the 4053 and see if any SOA limits are exceeded. I happen to have also written a hot-electron SOA checker (macro), so I should be able to predict any adverse effects.

Just because you may have _once_ dumped a capacitor with an analog switch doesn't make you an expert ;-) ...Jim Thompson

If it's a rare occurence, probably okay, but metal migration induced failures due to exceeding the maximum current density on a metallization layer is an obvious possibility. Personally, I'd put a

The way it works is that the tax is made on the final product. If you buy in parts, services or just about anything used in the course of business, you are allowed to reclaim the vat before it is finally sold. The final tax is charged on the finished product sold to the consumer. I guess it could be considered regressive, but most taxes are where non essentials are concerned. Not that i'm defending it, just explaining how it works.

I can't really comment on that, but many people in europe, including myself, were gratefull for any change that got rid of Bush and co, irrespective of which party he hailed from.

In the end, it's not the *party*, but what's best for the *country* at any given time. It's always a compromise between what you as an individual think and the rest. It's an insult to the intelligence to suggest that any one party always has all the right answers.

In the uk, the labour party have been in power since for ever. They will almost certainly be kicked out in the elections next year, because they are seen as being a spent force, are becoming too arrogant, authoritarian, lacking clue and are completely out of touch with the mood of the nation.

Labour are supposed to be the left wing party and much was expected of them to solve some serious social issues, but they failed completely and got us involved in an unwinnable (we can debate that) war, who's ethical justification has never been demonstrated. Add to that all the stasi like stuff they are trying to introduce and it's a classic case of reversion to type. Closet authoritarian and anti libertarian to a man :-)...

Regards,

Chris

Why?

John

I don't really want to get into all this, as it's not the forum, but could have wept for the us after 9/11 and the years that followed. The physical damage can be mended, but the damage to individual families and the psyche of the nation could take decades to repair, if ever...

Regards,

Chris

Going after Al Queda in Afghanistan, and squashing the government that sheltered them, was necessary.

I personally believe that GB perceived that the only longterm fix to the clash of cultures was to plant a working democracy in the heart of the Muslim world, and that Iraq was the ideal place to do it. Nothing "base" about that.

Seems to be working so far. And based on Sadaam's time-averaged slaughter rate, it has saved lives thus far.

John