Archive for August 28th, 2012

Is the Federal government a good value?

August 28, 2012

A Kaiser Foundation survey asked folks:

Thinking about all that the Federal government does for you, do you think that you get more or less value than what you pay in taxes?

The results

  • Less than 10% said that they got more value than what they paid in taxes.
  • About 1/3 thought they got about the right value for taxes paid
  • More than half of the respondents said that they got less value than what they paid in taxes.

Of course, the last finding is most interesting since it’s a majority … and since about half of the folks don’t pay any income taxes.

Hmmm

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Source question

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News flash: Many people strongly dislike paying taxes … here’s proof.

August 28, 2012

Most people dislike paying taxes.

Many  people strongly dislike paying taxes.

No surprise, the tax aversion tendency is most prevalent among people who identify with political parties that generally favor less taxation.

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Although this distaste could be rational on economic grounds, a recently published study  shows  that this attitude extends beyond simply disliking the costs incurred and affects behavior in “counternormative” ways … a phenomenon coined “ tax aversion”: a desire to avoid taxes per se that exceeds the rational economic motivation to avoid a monetary cost.

The researchers  provide evidence that people have a stronger preference to avoid tax-related costs than to avoid equal-sized (or larger) monetary costs unrelated to taxes.

  • For example, the proportion of Americans who said they’d travel 30 minutes to save 8% on an item by getting it tax-free was 29% bigger than the proportion who said they’d travel the same distance to get an ordinary 9% discount.
  • Similarly,  more than 4 times as many Americans said they’d rather invest in a bond that offered a $120 annual tax-free return than a bond that offered $160 but required a $40 tax.

The researchers say that tax aversion can be mitigated by identifying positive uses of tax payments.

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The “fair share” canard …

August 28, 2012

Of course, President Obama is continuing to rant that the rich need to pay their fair share.

Well, according to a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the rich are paying their fair share.

Based on a WSJ analysis of the CBO data:

  • The average federal tax rate on the top 20% is 23.2%. The 20% of taxpayers earning between $50,100 and $73,999 pay an average 15.1%, and so on down the line.
  • The top 20% of income earners (over $74,000) make 50% of the nation’s income but pay nearly 70% of all federal taxes;  The remaining 30% of the tax burden is borne by 80% of tax filers

Some inconvenient facts, right?

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Picture this: “Food paparazzi”

August 28, 2012

Punch line: A hot dining out trend … the intersection of the foodie culture and social media … call ’em food paparazzi.

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Excerpted from brandchannel.com’s “To Cell or Not – While Dining Out”

Interested in wooing business in a challenging economy, and accommodating a younger, wired clientele, many restaurants now cater to diners who have morphed into “food paparazzi.”

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photo courtesy of JNH

Flickr, the photo-sharing website, has seen the number of pictures tagged as “food” jump from about half a million in 2008 to more than 6 million today… In the group “I Ate This” on Flickr’s site, nearly 20,000 people have uploaded more than 307,000 images of their latest meals.

Of course, this doesn’t begin to count the myriad pictures of food posted to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Yelp and foodie niche social networks like Foodspotting.

Camera manufacturers are joining the trend. Nikon, Olympus and Sony sell cameras that offer “cuisine” or “food” settings, which adjust to enhance colors and textures on close-ups.

Sounds harmless enough, but the craze has detractors.

Some maitre d’s regularly face diners demanding to be moved away from camera flashes and the sound of firing shutters.

Some waiters are put off when voice recorders are used to  capture their recitation of each course.

Some chefs have had enough.

Perry’s Deli in Chicago, has gone so far as posting a sign for consumers of their signature overstuffed sandwiches:

“Attention! The use of cellular phones at Perry’s is strictly prohibited. If you are that important that you must use your phone, you should be eating in a much more upscale restaurant.”

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